IC-NRLF 


AN  INHERITANCE 


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AMOS  JUDD.      By  J.  A.   Mitchell 
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IA.      A  Love  Story.      By  Q 
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THE    SUICIDE    CLUB 

By  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

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By  Harriet  Prescott  Spofford 

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ONE  OF  THE  VISCONTI 
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AN  INHERITANCE 

By  Harriet  Prescott  Spofford 

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,  '  fv& '  ? 

AN  INHERITANCE 


BY 

HARRIET  PRESCOTT  SPOFFORD 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1897 


COPYRIGHT,  1897,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


TROW  DIRECTORY 

t RINTINO  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK 


AN  INHERITANCE 


IT  is  not  at  all  an-  unpleasant  thing  to 
come  into  a  little  property  when  it  is  at 
tended  by  no  personal  loss.  And  there  was 
really  no  personal  loss,  as  people  said,  that 
could  attend  Miss  Barbara  Camperdoun's 
inheritance  from  a  cousin  who,  it  was 
thought,  had  wished  a  number  of  years  ago 
to  be  something  nearer  than  a  cousin,  but 
had  been  promptly  discouraged  by  that 
worthy  lady.  It  was  not  that  Miss  Bar 
bara,  as  her  sister-in-law  once  said,  had  no 
idea  of  marrying  anything  less  than  a 
prince  of  the  blood  royal,  and  as  no  prince 
was  proposing,  had  therefore  remained  sin 
gle  ;  but  as  she  herself  said,  whatever  ulti 
mate  reason  she  kept  unspoken,  she  pre 
ferred  to  be  no  one  in  particular  in  Boston, 


M174941 


.-,   ?; ,:  .-:.-. -AN  INHERITANCE 

,'    ',       t     t   «  «     '  c  *    *       *       .  .      t  ,       .      . 

'  so  far 'as  a'Camperdoun  could  be  no  one  in 
particular,  to  being  the  first  lady  in  a 
mountain  village. 

Besides,  she  might  not  have  been  first  lady, 
had  she  gone.  The  minister's  wife — no,  a 
country  minister's  wife,  Miss  Barbara  assured 
herself,  could  hardly  take  precedence  of  her, 
with  the  minister  more  or  less  dependent  on 
her  good  will.  But  the  doctor's  wife — ah  ! 
everyone  was  dependent  on  the  good  will  of 
the  doctor,  that  viceroy  of  life  and  death ; 
and  Dr.  Donner  was  a  man  of  power.  She 
remembered  seeing  him  when  breaking  a 
horse  for  her  uncle,  a  vast  black  brute  of  a 
Bellerophon,  while  she  was  a  girl  visiting  at 
Woodsedge.  Someone  said  that  now  he  was 
content  with  horses  other  people  had  broken, 
for  driving  about  the  country  on  his  prac 
tice  that  went  far  and  wide  among  the  hills. 
She  had  seen  him  occasionally  since  then,  at 
her  brother's  house  when  he  had  come  down 
about  her  cousin's  affairs,  or  about  his  own, 
from  time  to  time. 

Miss  Barbara  had  gone  up  to  Woodsedge 


AN  INHERITANCE  3 

now,  a  day  and  night's  journey,  to  take  pos 
session  of  her  house,  bringing  with  her  Luisa, 
her  exceedingly  pretty  niece.  It  was  at  the 
close  of  a  long  and  gay  season,  through 
which  Luisa  had  danced  and  dined  and 
lunched,  gone  to  theatre  and  opera  and  pri 
vate  views  and  five-o'clock  teas  and  dinner 
dances,  posed  in  living  pictures  and  assisted 
in  skirt-dances  given  for  charity  to  a  femi 
nine  audience,  and  Miss  Barbara  said  the 
mountain  air  would  bring  Luisa  back  to 
a  normal  standard  of  health  and  morals. 
And  besides,  she  was  not  going  alone,  any 
way  ! 

Luisa  was  certainly  below  normal  stand 
ard  now,  sleepless  by  night,  and  languid 
and  listless  by  day,  and  in  danger  of  losing 
that  wonderful  bloom,  softer  than  the  tint 
on  the  petal  of  the  sweetbrier  rose,  that 
flushed  the  oval  of  her  cheek,  and  bright 
ened  the  lustre  of  the  dark  eye  under  its 
drooping  lid  and  shadowy  lashes,  and  deep 
ened  the  red  of  the  tender,  pulpy  mouth. 
Miss  Barbara  had  thought,  apropos  of  her 


4  AN  INHERITANCE 

sister-in-law's  speech,  and  when  she  looked 
at  Luisa' s  lithe  and  slender  shape,  the 
abundance  of  her  dark  hair,  the  modelling 
of  every  feature,  that  if  royal  princes  were 
really  an  question,  here  was  a  girl  to  be 
mentioned  !  But  although,  of  course,  that 
was  idle  talk,  Miss  Barbara  gave  it  to  be 
understood  that  what  money  she  had — and 
it  was  not  inconsiderable — was  going  to 
Luisa  Camperdoun,  Luisa  being  the  one 
thing  in  this  world  that  the  imperious  lady 
loved  better  than — no,  no,  as  well  as  her 
self;  about  as  well,  at  any  rate,  as  her  own 
way. 

No ;  Miss  Barbara's  fortune  was  not  by 
any  means  inconsiderable,  as  she  had  said. 
It  had  been  a  fair  share  of  her  father's 
accumulations  in  the  beginning ;  and  she 
had  always  lived  with  her  brother,  spend 
ing  but  little,  saying  to  people  who  ap 
pealed  for  charity  that  she  had  charities  of 
her  own,  and  telling  the  children  on  birth 
days  and  holidays  that  she  was  doing  better 
for  them  in  the  future  than  if  she  gave  them 


AN  INHERITANCE  5 

gifts  now.  Of  course,  all  the  connection 
and  acquaintance  spoke  of  Barbara's  parsi 
mony  ;  and  the  amount  of  her  savings  and 
well-turned-over  investments  was  put  at  va 
rious  large  figures. 

The  only  deviation  from  her  quiet  way 
of  holding  her  own  was  when  she  saw  the 
charm  that  Luisa  was  going  to  develop. 
Then  she  had  more  expensive  masters  than 
the  father  thought  he  should  afford,  paying, 
however,  only  the  difference  in  price  ;  and 
she  had  taken  her  a  short  European  journey. 
When  in  her  nineteenth  year  Luisa  came 
out,  Miss  Barbara  had  supplied  her  with  a 
half  score  of  bouquets,  lest  she  should  not 
have  enough,  although,  as  it  happened,  she 
had  too  many ;  she  had  given  the  girl  every 
thing  which  could  adorn  her  beauty;  she 
had  bought  Symphony  tickets  at  nameless 
prices,  and  a  box  at  the  horse-show;  and 
furbishing  up  her  own  old  gowns,  some  of 
which  might  well  have  been  heirlooms,  she 
had  chaperoned  her  at  the  opera ;  had  sat 
out  tiresome  germans — Mrs.  Camperdoun's 


6  AN  INHERITANCE 

delicate  health  making  her  unequal  to  such 
fatigues — and  had  done  her  best  as  a  dragon 
to  keep  off  the  youths  who  danced  on  a 
small  capital,  and  to  see  that  beauty  had  its 
rights. 

The  youth  who  gave  her  the  most  trouble 
was  Penny  Gower,  an  attractive  but  impe 
cunious  young  artist,  who  danced  so  fault 
lessly  that  it  left  him  with  an  exhausted  air, 
as  if  he  would  really  be  quite  unable  to  stand 
if  he  did  not  lean  back  upon  past  genera 
tions,  an  air  that  was  often  found  irresisti 
ble. 

To  tell  the  truth,  the  persistency  with 
which  Penrose  Gower  loitered  about  her 
was  one  of  the  reasons  that  made  Miss 
Barbara  so  resolved  upon  Luisa's  going  up 
into  the  hill  country  with  her.  Penny  had 
been  painting  Luisa's  portrait  —  the  work 
well  under  way  before  Miss  Barbara  knew 
of  it.  And  as  it  had  gone  so  far,  and  was 
supposed  to  be  a  labor  of  love,  Miss  Bar 
bara,  on  her  well-worn  principle  of  getting 
something  for  nothing,  had  allowed  the 


AN  INHERITANCE  7 

sittings  to  proceed,  herself  accompanying 
Luisa,  however,  in  the  place  of  the  maid, 
or  of  Helen  Reynolds,  or  other  victim  of 
the  hour.  But  the  presence  of  Miss  Bar 
bara  had  brought  back  the  old  exhaustion 
to  Penny's  manner,  and  the  picture's  prog 
ress  had  been  too  slow  for  Miss  Barbara's 
impatient  habit. 

"That  young  man,"  she  said,  "must 
have  the  tired  feeling  you  read  of  in  the 
patent  medicine  advertisements." 

"  She  has  the  stony  stare  of  the  gorgon, 
when  she  puts  up  her  glass,"  said  Penny, 
as  he  was  walking  on  the  avenue  with 
Luisa.  "She  simply  paralyzes  me;  I 
can't  have  her  coming  to  the  studio,  don't 
you  know.  I  shall  find  the  picture  turning 
into  a  likeness  of  her." 

"Do  it !  "  exclaimed  Luisa.  "Do  it ! 
It  will  make  your  fortune !  Composite 
picture  of  a  Boston  family!  Hereditary 

traits  coming  to  the  top " 

"Well,  I  didn't  suppose  you  cared," 
declared  Penny.  "  But  I  care." 


8  AN  INHERITANCE 

"Pshaw!  "  said  Luisa. 

"  A  man  with  a  heart  in  his  body,"  said 
Penny,  flicking  a  pebble  out  of  the  way 
with  his  stick,  as  they  swept  on  past  the 
congregated  nurses  and  luxurious  babies 
who  monopolize  that  way,  "  ought  to  keep 
at  a  distance  from  you  !  ' ' 

"Then  you  are  all  right,"  said  Luisa, 
gayly. 

"You  know  the  only  reason  I  haven't  a 
heart  is ' ' 

"Oh,  Penny,  Penny!"  cried  Luisa. 
"Why  will  you  talk  of  what  you  know 
nothing  !  And  didn't  you  learn  in  your 
anatomy  class  that  the  heart  is  a  delicate 
organ  and  will  never  endure  being  bandied 
about  so  ?  It  runs  a  risk  of  being  broken  ; 
and  then  what  will  it  be  good  for  ?  " 

"To  dangle  at  your  belt,"  he  said, 
moodily. 

"  How  you  mix  metaphors  !  One  would 
think  I  carried  scalps  at  my  belt !  " 

"  When  you  are  out  on  the  love-path. 
But " 


AN  INHERITANCE  9 

"  Oh,  I  forgot  to  tell  you  !     I  am  going 
away.     Going  with  Aunt  Barbara ' ' 

"  Going  away  !  "  said  Penny,  blankly. 

"  Yes,  into  the  wilderness." 

11  And  the  portrait?  " 

"Oh,  turn  it  to  the  wall." 

"  Luisa  !     The   lovely    thing — why,   my 
whole  heart  is  in  it !" 

"There  you  go  again!     Well,  let   your 
heart  stay  in  it,  and  it  will  be  perfectly  safe." 

1 '  I  believe  you  have  no  more  heart  your 
self  than  there  is  in  that  picture  !  ' ' 

"You  just  said  there  was  a  heart  in  it. 
Yours,  I  believe.  So  you're  wrong  there, 
you  see.  But  I'm  coming  home.  At  least 
I  suppose  I'm  coming  home,"  said  Luisa, 
rather  ruefully.  "  When  one  is  in  Aunt 
Barbara's  hands  one  is  never  sure  of  any 
thing.  She  has  come  into  some  property 
up  there ;  an  old  family  place,  and  all  that. 
And  she  will  have  me  go  with  her — and  it's 
very  provoking  just  now,  and  that's  the 
truth!" 

"  Well,  then,"  said  Penny,  brightening. 


10  AN  INHERITANCE 

"  Well,  then.  It's  Woodsedge.  Up  back 
of  the  mountains,  a  perfectly  lovely  place  for 
a  painter  to  recreate."  And  Luisa's  face 
was  the  color  of  a  carnation.  "  Now  you'll 
say  I  haven't  any  heart !  "  she  said.  "  Oh, 
dear!  "  pausing  a  moment  at  the  crossing, 
bending  forward,  and  looking  over  to  the 
river,  "isn't  that  Helen  and  Anne?  Yes, 
it  is ;  they  are  going  down  the  alley.  Oh, 
the  crews  are  out !  " 

"  I  don't  care  anything  about  the  crews  !  " 
exclaimed  Penny. 

"Good-by,  then;  I  do." 

And  the  naughty  coquette  was  hurrying 
away  through  Gloucester  Street,  a  little 
afraid,  a  little  ashamed,  a  little  amused,  and 
leaving  Penny  disconsolate — Penny  who  was 
madly  in  love  with  her  color  and  her  out 
lines,  her  eyes  and  her  dimples,  and  thought 
he  was  in  love  with  her ;  Penny  whom  she 
liked  very  well,  whose  devotion  she  liked 
very  well,  whom  she  found  it  pleasant  to 
keep  in  evidence,  but  whom  she  knew  it 
would  never  do  in  the  world  for  her  to 


AN  INHERITANCE  II 

marry,  even  if  she  had  wished,  which  she 
didn't.  Very  few  men,  to  be  sure,  had  such 
eyes  as  Penny — black  as  a  gypsy's,  and  that 
sometimes  seemed  to  strike  sparks.  But  then 
man  cannot  live  on  eyes  alone,  Luisa  had 
said.  He  was  a  handsome  fellow,  with  his 
dark,  smooth  skin  ;  although,  to  be  sure,  his 
nose  was  large.  But,  there,  he  hadn't  a 
cent ;  so  what  was  the  use  ? 

She  had  reached  the  corner,  when  she 
stopped  to  gather  up  her  skirt  and  glance 
over  her  shoulder.  Penny  was  standing 
where  she  left  him,  leaning  back  a  little  on 
his  stick ;  but  the  girl  who  had  accosted 
him— those  nodding  plumes,  the  chinchilla 
capes,  that  bright  plaid  of  the  silken  skirt- 
lining  blowing  out  on  the  wind  that  eddied 
all  about  the  wearer  —  Luisa  murmured  to 
herself  that  she  never  could  imagine  what 
Penny  Gower  saw  to  flirt  with  in  that  ab 
surd  Fanny  Fairfield  ! 

So  Miss  Barbara  had  come  up  to  Woods- 
edge,  her  nerves  very  much  racked  by  the 
day  and  night's  travel;  and  after  resting 


12  AN  INHERITANCE 

another  day  and  night,  had  proceeded  to  ex 
plore  the  house  and  feel  herself  in  possession 
of  her  new  property. 

The  commercial  value  of  the  property  here 
was,  of  course,  nothing  at  all  to  her  in  com 
parison  with  its  sentimental  value.     She  went 
over  the  house  with  Luisa,  somewhat  to  the 
disgust  of  old  Martha,  who  had  been  undis 
puted  mistress,  servant,  nurse,  and  friend, 
and  who  now  had  to  learn  that  there  was 
but  one  mistress  where  Miss  Barbara  was; 
and  she  pointed  out  its  family  features — the 
room  where  her  grandfather  was  born,  the 
room  where  his  mother  used  to  sit  in  state 
and   receive   homage  of  the  lesser   people, 
their  pictures — it  was  no  wonder  that  Miss 
Barbara  was  an   imperious   person.     There 
was    still   much   of    the    beautiful    French 
porcelain  about,  a  couple  of  hundred  years 
old,  perhaps,  that  had  been  brought  up  into 
the  wilderness   on    the  backs  of  men  who 
knew  what  a  misstep  meant,   and   some  of 
the  antique  silver. 

"It's  a  real  find,"    said  Miss  Barbara. 


AN  INHERITANCE  13 

"  To  think  of  Launce  eating  with  a  gold 
spoon  up  here  in  the  Ultima  Thule  every 
day  of  his  silly  life,  and  taking  pleasure  in 
it!  " 

"  They  will  be  lovely  for  afternoon  teas," 
said  Luisa. 

"This  old  Martha  must  be  a  very  care 
ful  person ;  perhaps  she  will  do  to  keep  on 
with  some  others.  I  don't  know  but  we 
shall  have  to  turn  the  place  into  a  summer 
mansion,  after  all,  and  bring  up  your  father 
and  mother  and  Bob  and  the  boys.  It  has 
every  requisite,  you  see — ancestral  quality, 
numberless  rooms,  plenty  of  land — Good 
ness,  what  a  gardener  can  make  of  these 
grounds! — mountain  air  —  and,  bless  my 
soul,  what  scenery  !  "  lifting  her  lorgnon  to 
look  out,  a  little  patronizingly,  at  the  great 
mountains  veiled  with  sunshine  and  purple 
that  seemed  to  be  offering  her  their  hospi 
tality. 

"  We  can  have  golf  links " 

1  'If  you  want.  Croquet  is  good  enough 
for  me,  though." 


14  AN  INHERITANCE 

"Well,  as  you  never  play  either,  Aunt 
Barbara " 

"To  be  sure,  the  boys  will  cry  havoc 
and  let  loose  the  dogs  of  war  here  and  get 
into  that  old  bog,"  said  Miss  Barbara,  pur 
suing  her  own  thoughts.  "I  don't  know 
if  I  will  have  them  this  year,  at  any  rate. 
You  and  I  can  be  very  comfortable  here 
without  them  for  one  summer " 

' '  The  whole  summer  ?  ' '  cried  Luisa,  in 
dismay. 

"The  whole  summer.  You  are  run 
down,  and  need  a  good  rest  from  dancing 
and  flirting." 

"  Well,  I  sha'n't  build  up  if  I  am  bored 
to  death  with  nothing  to  do  and  no  one  to 
see." 

"You  shall  have  a  horse.  And  here  is 
this  great  Bursar  for  protector.  I  never  did 
like  a  mastiff  before ;  but  he  seems  to  have 
taken  quite  a  fancy  to  us.  And  you  can 
roam  the  country  with  him,  and  be  out 
doors  most  of  the  time. ' ' 

"I  shall  simply  die  !  " 


AN  INHERITANCE  15 

"  Oh,  no.  There's  a  very  good  doctor 
here,  I  believe.  Yes,  we  might  do  worse. 
And  we' 11  try  it." 

"  Aunt  Barbara,  you  look  exactly  like 
that  old  portrait,  the  last  one  in  the  lower 
hall." 

"  I  ?  We  used  to  call  her  the  Iron  Lady. 
She  was  a  grandmother  or  a  great-grand 
mother  somewhere. ' ' 

11  That's  what  it  means  then — your  iron 
will.  Wouldn't  Penny  have  a  fine  time 
with  these  portraits  !  " 

"Oh!     Penny!" 

"  The  strange  old  masks  !  It  seems  as  if 
we  either  had  more  ancestors  than  other 
people — and  a  queer  lot,  too — or  else  that 
they  had  a  furious  habit  of  hanging  them 
selves " 

"  Luisa  !  "  said  Miss  Barbara.  "  How  you 
do  let  your  tongue  run  away  with  you  !  " 

"Why,  what  earthly  harm  in  hanging 
themselves  on  the  wall  in  gilt  frames?  No, 
some  of  them  are  old  carved  wood,  aren't 
they  ?  Why,  what  of  it  ?  They  never  any 


I(5  AN  INHERITANCE 

of  them  paid  the  penalty  of  their  crimes  at 
the  rope's  end,  did  they  ?  " 

"I  never  knew  they  committed  any 
crimes,"  said  Miss  Barbara,  coldly.  But 
she  was  quite  white  for  a  few  moments. 
She  alone,  perhaps,  a  keeper  of  traditions, 
knew  who  they  were  in  every  generation  of 
the  Camperdouns  that  had  themselves  pulled 
down  the  eternal  shadows  about  them,  as 
her  young  sister  Lona  had  done,  with  her 
own  hands.  She  had  always  tried  to  keep 

the  whole  subject  out  of  her  thoughts it 

was  never  spoken  of  before  the  children— 
and  her  iron  will  held  her  in  good  stead 
there.  She  pulled  herself  together  now. 
"  Well,  there  were  a  good  many  of  them," 
she  said.  "  I  suppose  travelling  portrait- 
painters  happened  along ' ' 

"  The  very  thing  for  Penny  !     I'll  write 
him  how  to  turn  his  summer  to  account !  ' ' 
"Oh,  let  Penny  rest!  " 
"Aunt  Barbara,  you  are  dangerously  near 
slang.     Penny  could  take  his  brush  and  turn 
those  ogres,  with  their  eyes  looking  all  ways 


AN  INHERITANCE  17 

of  a  Sunday,  into  really  valuable  antiquities. 
I'm  sure  that  going  through  the  upper  halls 
at  midnight  here  I  shall  have  to  run.  I 
shall  know  the  house  is  haunted.  What 
if  a  moonbeam  suddenly  lights  up  that  pale 
girl  whose  eyes  look  as  if  she  were  out  of 
her  head — they  are,  anyway " 

"  There,  there,  Luisa,  don't  cultivate 
ridiculous  notions  !  You  will  be  very  proud 
of  these  old  portraits  some  day.  Yes,  the 
more  I  see  the  house  and  place,  the  better 
I  think  of  it  all  and  its  possibilities.  And 
as  for  Penny — there,  Luisa,  don't  let  me 
hear  anything  more  about  him.  He  bored 
me  to  death  before  I  left  town,  and  I  should 
like  to  have  one  place  free  from  him.  Now, 
you  take  Bursar  and  run  along.  I  am  go 
ing  through  the  papers  in  Cousin  Launce's 
desks.  I  mean  to  do  the  thing  up  thor 
oughly,  and  know  just  where  I  stand,  and 
all  about  it." 

"Poor  Aunt  Barbara!  It's  an  awful 
task.  Can't  I  help  you?  Let  me  have 
some  of  them ' ' 


1 8  AN  INHERITANCE 

"  Didn't  you  hear  me  say  I  was  going 
through  them  myself?  What  good  would 
it  do  me  to  have  you  read  them  ?  Besides, 
if  Launce  had  not  left  them  here  I  shouldn't 
feel  as  if  he  were  willing  I  should  read 
them.  To  be  sure,  he  may  have  forgotten 
to  destroy  them.  He — he — was  not  per 
fectly  well  in  his  last  years.  However," 
said  Miss  Barbara,  in  a  more  sprightly 
manner,  "I  should  have  had  the  freedom 
of  everything  if  he  had  had  his  way.  So 
I  sha'n't  hesitate.  But  I  know  he  did 
not  mean  you  should  overlook  his  papers, 
at  any  rate." 

"All  right,  then,"  said  Luisa.  "I  am 
sure  I  don't  want  to."  And  she  pursed 
her  pretty  lips  in  a  whistle  that  Bursar, 
suffering  from  loneliness,  bounded  to  hear, 
and  was  off  with  him  into  the  overrun 
and  long-neglected  garden,  where  the  spring 
was  just  beginning  to  pout  in  leaf  and  bud 
of  the  old  primroses  and  sweetbriers  and 
spice-buds  and  honeysuckles.  "I  suppose," 
said  Luisa,  touching  the  long,  red  sprays 


AN  INHERITANCE  19 

of  the  bare  climbing  roses  half  tenderly, 
"  that  the  women  imprisoned  here  in  their 
lonely  lives  loved  every  inch  of  you.  I 
dare  say  there  was  some  poor  sweet  girl 
— I  will  trim  you  now  and  help  you  for 
their  sakes.  I  shall  really  feel  as  if  I  were 
doing  something  for  them.  I  must  have 
had,  all  told,  so  much  gayer  a  life  than 
they." 

And  she  began  to  disentangle  the  stems, 
and  went  searching  for  a  trowel  to  open 
the  earth  around  their  roots,  old  Martha 
looking  at  her  askance  from  the  kitchen 
window.  But  at  that,  Bursar  wanted  a 
frolic,  or  perhaps  he  recognized  Brow  trot 
ting  along  after  the  doctor's  gig,  for  he 
was  over  the  wall  like  a  ball,  and  Luisa, 
running  to  the  gate  and  throwing  it  open, 
rushed  almost  into  the  arms  of  a  young 
girl,  into  whose  face  an  apple-blossom  color 
had  just  mounted — a  lovely  young  girl  with 
a  sort  of  ivory  fairness  on  her  perfect  feat 
ures,  and  with  eyes  like  stars  in  midnight 
blue,  and  pale  blonde  hair  in  great  masses, 


20  AN  INHERITANCE 

and  a  smile  like  sunshine,  as  superbly 
straight  and  tall  a  young  girl  as  Botticelli's 
Flora. 

"Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  Luisa; 
"  I  was  afraid  the  dog  would  run  away." 

"  He  has,"  said  the  young  girl,  smiling. 
"  He  won't  come  back  to-day.  He  loves 
to  go  with  Brow  and  the  doctor.  But  he's 
all  right.  I  suppose — I  suppose,"  she  said, 
hesitatingly,  and  looking  at  Luisa  a  little 
wistfully,  "  that  you  are  Miss  Camperdoun. 
And  I  am  Mary  Swann.  My  father  is  the 
minister,  you  know.  You  are  working  in 
the  garden.  Don't  you  want  to  let  me 
help  you  ?  I  am  a  famous  gardener." 

"I  was  going  to  work  in  the  garden," 
said  Luisa,  "and  I  should  have  been  de 
lighted  to  have  you  help  me.  But  now 
we  will  sit  down  on  this  bench  and  have 
Martha  bring  us  some  lemonade  and  sweet 
cakes.  Poor  old  Martha  !  She  thinks  I  am 
the  woman  of  Babylon  now  ;  but  she  is  go 
ing  to  adore  me  before  the  summer  is  over. 
And  you  shall  tell  me  about  this  place, 


AN  INHERITANCE  21 

so  that  I  can  find  my  way — I  mean  among 
the  people.  As  for  these  mountains,  did 
you  ever  know  anything  like  them?  I 
never  did.  They  look  as  if  they  were  made 
of  sunshine  and  purple  chiffon.  I  suppose 
they  can  be  ugly  enough  when  it  rains, 
though." 

"  No,  never,  never  !  " 

"  Oh,  you  love  them,  I  see,  just  as  I  love 
Boylston  Street,  and  the  milliners'  windows, 
and  Englander's  and  the  Common,  and  the 
Back  Bay  fens,  and  all.  Well,  you  are  the 
minister's  daughter,"  leaning  forward,  her 
elbows  on  her  knees,  and  surveying  her. 
"I  suppose  you  are  awfully  good.  Who 
was  that  youth  I  saw  then — tall,  blonde, 
with  black  eyebrows,  going  up  the  road  ? 
There  he  is,  looking  round  now,"  said 
Luisa,  half  turning  to  peer  through  the 
crack  of  the  open,  back -garden  gate. 

"  That  is  John  Donner,"  said  Mary 
Svvann,  and  the  apple-blossom  color  became 
that  of  a  damask  rose. 

1 '  That   is   John    Donner,   is   it?"    said 


22  AN  INHERITANCE 

Luisa,  looking  at  her  with  a  bubbling  laugh. 
"And  now,  tell  me  all  about  John  Don- 
ner."  And  the  two  girls  were  on  the  way 
to  be  friends  without  more  ado. 

It  was  at  the  same  moment  that  Luisa 
had  run  for  the  trowel  that  a  similar  sensa 
tion  of  pity  for  cribbed  and  cabined  lives 
passed  here  touched  Miss  Barbara  with  the 
shiver  that  people  say  you  have  when  some 
one  is  stepping  on  your  grave. 

"This  is  nonsense,"  said  Miss  Barbara, 
and  then  she  wiped  her  reading-glasses  and 
adjusted  herself  to  her  task. 

It  was  not  a  very  interesting  task  at  first — 
Miss  Barbara's.  There  were  copies  of  vari 
ous  old  wills  and  decrees  of  court;  the 
Camperdouns  had  been  a  litigious  race. 
There  were  deeds  of  land  and  woodland, 
which  she  examined  carefully;  and  there 
were  old  account-books,  which  she  handled 
more  cursorily;  and  there  were  some  dia 
ries —  brief,  threadbare  statements  of  the 
days  of  dull  and  simple  lives ;  and  then 
there  were  old  letters. 


AN  INHERITANCE  23 

They  were  yellow,   and  falling  apart  in 
folds,  these  letters.     Here  was  one — a  love- 
letter  ?     Yet,  in  what  stilted  phrase  !     But 
out  of  it  dropped  a  pressed  and  faded  rose, 
and  all  the  pride  and  passion  hidden  in  the 
stately  words  were  revealed  in  the  flower. 
A  tear  sprang  in   Miss  Barbara's  eye ;  they 
were  her  own  people.     She  felt  how  precious 
the  pompous  and  sounding  old  letter  once 
had  been.     Here  was  the  epistle  her  grand 
father  had  sent  from  the  Indies,  whither  he 
had  sailed,  beginning,  "Esteemed  Wife." 
And,  yes,  here  was  the  reply,  "  My  Hon 
ored   Husband."      Were  they  really    alive 
then,  these  people  ?     Did  their  hearts  beat  ? 
A  still  shining  little  lock  of  a  dead  baby's 
hair,  that  she  had  sent  him  as  if  he  must 
have  something  to  touch  of  the  child  born 
and  dead  in  his  absence,  fell  from  the  next 
letter  and  answered  her. 

Here  were  her  own  letters  to  her  Cousin 
Launce,  among  them  the  one  in  which  she 
had  refused  to  marry  him.  "  We  are  cous 
ins,"  she  had  said  in  it,  "and  that  might 


24  AN  INHERITANCE 

be  bad  enough  if  we  were  all  as  other 
people,  we  Camperdouns.  But  with  the 
dark  possibility  that  hangs  over  every  one 
of  us,  it  would  be  inviting  ruin.  Perhaps 
we  would  better  not  see  each  other  often, 
if  ever.  I  shall  not  marry." 

His  answer    had  been  brief  and  to  the 
point:   "Neither  shall  I." 

•Plainly,  he  had  lived  up  to  his  determi 
nation.  There  were  no  love-letters  from 
other  women.  There  were  a  few  business 
letters,  on  the  backs  of  which  he  had  noted 
memoranda,  a  passing  thought,  an  extract 
of  something  he  had  been  reading,  one  or 
two  letters  from  friends — one  where  the 
signature  caught  her  eye  first,  John  Donner, 
the  same  name  as  that  at  the  foot  of  the 
letter  lately  announcing  her  cousin's  death 
and  her  inheritance;  Dr.  Donner  telling 
her  she  was  the  executor  of  Mr.  Camper  - 
doun's  will,  made  many  years  ago. 

"  I  don't  know  now  whether  I  am  eaves 
dropping  or  not,"  said  Miss  Barbara. 
"He's  alive — but  it's  part  of  the  business, 


AN  INHERITANCE  25 

I   suppose.     All   the  same "  and  she 

smoothed  out  the  old  letter,  as  she  had  done 
the  others,  and  read  : 

"  Thanks  to  you,  dear  boy,  the  work  is 
over,  and  he  that  was  Rusticus  salutes  you 
Medicus.  Nor  shall  I  be  so  long  as  I  had 
feared  in  paying  what  it  cost.  I  am  paying 
what  it  cost  now. 

"  I  am  bringing  a  wife  to  Woodsedge. 
That  surprises  you.  It  did  me. 

"Of  course,  you  know,  remembering  the 
'nights  we  had  in  Egypt,'  that  it  was  no 
thought  of  mine.  But  while  I  was  at  work, 
some  good  friends  saw  the  chance  and 
smoothed  the  way.  And  I  simply  fell  in — 
with  their  suggestion.  She  has — let  me  tell 
you — a  little  pot  of  money.  With  that  I 
shall  look  up  my  debts,  and  buy  old  Pil- 
cott's  place  and  practice  in  Woodsedge ;  I 
always  liked  that  house.  I  shall  turn  the 
place  into  a  stock-farm,  and  start  a  new 
breed  of  horses — do  what  I  must  in  the 
way  of  my  profession,  and  no  more.  And 


26  AN  INHERITANCE 

for  the  rest,  there  shall  be  marauding  of  the 
hills  with  you,  and  all  the  pleasures  of  our 
youth  so  long  as  youth  lasts. 

"The  only  trouble  is  that  she  may  wish  to 
make  a  man  walk  too  straight  a  line.  Her 
own  lines  are  very  straight — a  girl  who 
never  was  young,  and  who  looks  at  life 
through  the  narrow  chink  of  the  church 
door.  Oh,  well,  it's  a  hard  world,  and 
very  few  of  us  get  out  of  it  alive.  But  when 
I  remember  your  flashing  Cousin  Barbara, 
when  I  remember  the  pretty  girls  across  the 
hills  and  far  away 

"  There  it  is,  old  fellow.  I  had  to  pour 
it  out  or  die,  and  you  are  all  I  have.  But 
keep  it  to  yourself.  It  is  Mrs.  Donner,  you 
know.  And  Mrs.  Donner  shall  be  treated 
with  respect.  But  a  wife  is  not  the  end  of 
the  world,  my  boy.  A  hard  world  ?  No 
it  isn't,  no  it  isn't  !  It's  a  good,  gay  world  ! 
And  with  many  a  bout  before  us  yet,  I  am 
yours  to  command,  ")OHN  DONNER." 

Miss  Barbara  read  the  letter  again.    Some- 


AN  INHERITANCE  27^ 

how  it  made  her  heart  stand  still  with  a 
sense  of  the  tragedy  in  it. 

"  Was  the  man  writing  about  his  wife  ?  " 
she  said,  as  she  folded  it  up  and  put  it  back 
into  the  desk  with  the  rest  of  the  papers. 
"Was  he  writing  of  a  woman  who  had 
given  him  not  only  her  money  but  herself? 
What  incredible  baseness  !  The  lout — the 
scoundrel !  I  could  not  have  believed  a 
man  capable  of  it  !  What  a  contemptible 
thief!  Can  it  be — it  is  impossible!  It 
can't  be —  But  it  is!  The  man  who 
wrote  me  of  Launce's  death  ;  he  has  always 
been  close  to  the  poor  fellow.  But  I  don't 
understand.  That  man  who  met  us  at  the 
station,  and  drove  us  over  here  with  what 
he  called  his  lightning-shod  team;  that 
silent  man  with  his  rugged  face,  his  eyes 
that  were  set  in  his  head  like  wells  and 
seemed  to  reflect  the  very  blue  of  heaven 
and  all  its  beneficence  —  why,  that  man 
looked  as  if  he  might  be  a  messenger  of 
God  !  Dear  me — it  is  the  greatest  mystery 
I  ever  came  across.  But  there  were  never 


28  AN  INHERITANCE 

two  John  Donners  here,  and  he  is  the  one 
I  saw  breaking  in  that  great  black  brute 
and  looking  like  a  centaur,  nearly  forty 
years  ago,  for  I  reminded  him  of  it.  Yes ; 
and  he  had  a  sort  of  blind  worship  of 
Launce,  I  remember.  Well,  the  longer  you 
live  the  more  you  know,"  said  Miss  Bar 
bara.  "I  wouldn't  have  thought,"  she 
presently  began  again,  "  I  wouldn't  have 
thought  any  one  out  of  state's  prison 
could —  He  ought  to  be  in  state's  prison 
now  ;  that's  where  he  ought  to  be  !  That 
poor  girl,  that  poor  woman  he  married 
— I  wonder  what  became  of  her  ?  "  And 
Miss  Barbara's  eyes  wandered  dreamily  to 
the  window  of  the  west  parlor  where  she 
sat.  "  Dear  me!  "  she  cried.  "Do  they 
have  countesses  up  here  in  the  woods? 
Who  is  that,  I  wonder  ? ' '  And  she  sur 
veyed  with  an  admiring  interest  the  figure 
moving  slowly  up  the  path,  and  bearing  a 
parcel  in  her  hands  as  if  it  were  a  crown 
upon  a  cushion ;  a  tall  and  slender  person, 
a  small,  white  shawl  upon  her  shoulders, 


AN  INHERITANCE  ^  29 

carrying  herself  and  her  napkin-covered  dish 
with  a  gentle,  high-bred  air.  "  I  declare," 
said  Miss  Barbara,  aloud,  "  I  should  think 
a  Copley  had  stepped  out  of  a  portrait,  if 
her  dress  were  silk  and  satin  instead  of  hod 
den  gray.  Who  is  it,  Martha?"  as  pres 
ently  that  dame  opened  the  door,  holding 
a  platter  of  golden  butter-balls  set  in  great 
green  leaves  and  bunches  of  scarlet  blos 
som. 

"  She  wouldn't  come  in,  then,"  said 
Martha,  "  seein's  you  wuz  jes'  come,  an' 
tired,  she  ses.  She's  jes'  fetched  this  over 
in  the  way  of  you  feelin'  among  friends. 
Ye  needn't  set  nothin'  in  pertickler  by  it, 
though;  she's  doin'  ez  much  fer  ev'ybuddy. 
She  keeps  the  keys  fer  the  poor  o'  this 
perrish,  an'  it's  a  wide  an'  along  one,"  said 
Martha,  a  little  defiantly,  as  if  Miss  Barbara 
had  challenged  her.  "  I  do'  know  w'at 
she'll  do  in  heaven  with  no  poor  nor  sick 
nor  dyin'  ter  be  seen  ter.  She's  been  a-tend- 
in'  the  wounded  feet  o'  the  Lord  ever  sence 
she  set  her  own  in  this  place  an'  come  here 


30   ;:  AN  INHERITANCE 

for  its  best  blessing,  arter  the  doctor  him 
self.     It's  Mis'  Dr.  Donner,  ma'am." 

"  Oh,  Aunt  Barbara,"  cried  Luisa,  as  she 
came  into  the  west  parlor,  where  Miss  Bar 
bara  was  still  sitting,  speechless,  "  I've  fallen 
in  with  the  loveliest  girl — a  real  wild  rose  of 
a  girl,  if  she  wasn't  so  white — an  exquisite 
creature !  But  there  must  be  something  in 
the  air  here  that  makes  people  charming,  for 
I  met  the  most  beautiful  creature  at  the  gate. 
She  wasn't  young ;  she  was — she'  was ' ' 

"All  of  my  age,  Luisa.  Say  it,"  said 
Miss  Barbara. 

"And  she  wasn't  handsome;  she  wasn't 
pretty.  She  was  simply  heavenly  looking. 
Oh,  one  of  the  angels  bearing  the  Grail 
might  have  looked  just  so.  A  middle-aged 
angel,  you  know." 

"  She  was  bearing  butter  in  a  lordly  dish," 
said  Miss  Barbara,  in  reply.  But  to  herself 
she  said,  "  And  that  was  Dr.  Donner's  wife. 
The  woman  with  a  pot  of  money.  Well, 
there's  an  old  song  I've  heard  that  says, 
'They  went  up  through  much  tribulation.' 
Perhaps  she  knows  what  it  means." 


II 


IT  had  been  a  very  unhappy  woman  that 
came  so  long  ago  to  Woodsedge,  a  month's 
bride,  the  wife  of  John  Donner. 

Always  a  silent  woman,  now  she  was 
stricken  dumb.  In  the  month  she  had  dis 
covered  what  her  pot  of  money  meant.  If 
she  were  not  absolutely  sure  in  the  matter, 
her  suspicion  was  as  sad  as  certainty. 

She  had  lived  the  quiet  life  of  her  native 
seaport — more  than  ordinarily  quiet,  perhaps, 
owing  to  the  long  illness  of  her  mother, 
whose  death  had  been  followed  by  that  of 
her  father — with  few  other  pleasures  than 
that  of  church-going,  an  eventless  walk  with 
a  friend,  an  afternoon  sail,  maybe  a  lecture. 
Her  temperament  had  been  attuned  to  the 
calm  and  even  tenor  of  the  sick-room — if 
the  sky  were  blue  and  the  sun  shone  the 
pitch  was  rather  higher  than  if  the  rain 


32  AN  INHERITANCE 

poured  in  a  gray  torrent ;  but  when  the  rain 
poured,  a  little  more  effort  was  given  to 
maintain  the  tone. 

When  she  first  saw  John  Donner,  who  had 
come  down  with  a  fellow-student  from  the 
medical  school  for  a  Sunday,  something 
stirred  in  her  heart  which  she  had  never  felt 
before.  She  did  not  fairly  know  what  it 
was;  but  perhaps  under  its  stress  her  gaze 
rested  on  the  young  man  a  little  longer  than 
she  was  aware.  When  he  lifted  his  own 
eyes  and  their  glance  happened  to  catch 
hers,  a  color  dyed  her  face  that  made  him 
look  again,  and  the  gray  eyes  under  their 
straight  black  brows  fell  as  swiftly.  His 
friend  saw  the  glance  and  the  color,  made 
a  jest,  and  mentioned  her  money  —  a  small 
enough  sum  of  money,  but  riches  to  the 
young  student  helped  to  his  profession  by 
the  kindness  of  Launce  Camperdoun  and 
others — and  the  rest  was  easy.  He'  found 
that  much  warmth  of  expression  was  not 
needed ;  Nancy  had  been  bred  in  the  ways 
where  still  waters  run  deep,  and  her  life 


AN  INHERITANCE  33 

took  the  fresh  force  and  swung  over  into  its 
new  channel,  and  flowed  along  there  with 
the  strength  and  depth  of  a  great  river. 

It  was  all  the  sweetest  surprise  to  her. 
Her  plain,  immobile  face  and  tall,  gaunt  fig 
ure,  her  silence,  her  shyness,  her  ignorance 
of  the  social  arts,  had  hindered  admiration 
and  attention;  she  had  never  supposed  she 
would  have  a  lover.  And  suddenly  heaven 
had  opened  to  her.  Certainly,  in  those 
bright  days  she  did  not  feel  as  if  she  walked 
the  earth.  Yet  no  one  would  have  dreamed 
from  her  serious  demeanor  that  she  was  oc 
cupied  with  anything  but  a  business  agree 
ment.  She  loved  the  taking,  handsome 
scamp  with  her  whole  heart.  She  was  glad 
that  she  had  money  to  give  him ;  she  gave  it 
all,  and  at  once.  She  wished  that  she  had 
beauty  for  him;  but  what  did  it  signify 
when  he  was  so  high-minded  that  he  did  not 
heed  its  absence,  and  looked  for  an  inner 
beauty  in  her  soul  ?  He  imagined  it  there, 
she  said  in  her  humility ;  but  for  his  sake 
she  would  make  it  grow  there — the  desert 


34  AN  INHERITANCE 

should  blossom  as  the  rose.  She  made  few 
confidences  to  those  about  her — she  hardly 
made  a  confidant  of  heaven;  but  into  her 
formal  prayer  would  sometimes  escape  his 
name  as  she  implored  the  Lord's  best  bless 
ing  for  him,  with  every  fibre  of  her  being 
trembling.  She  little  dreamed  the  fiery 
path  they  must  tread  together  to  reach  that 
blessing. 

And  then  they  were  married  and  went 
away.  He  had  a  fancy  to  know  a  little  of 
the  wider  world  before  going  back  among 
the  hills.  He  had  never  had  the  means  to 
do  so  before.  He  wanted  to  see  some  races, 
some  great  stables,  to  buy  some  Kentucky 
horses.  She  was  a  sort  of  necessary  adjunct 
to  the  journey.  He  was  not  unkind  to  her ; 
he  was  even  kind,  after  a  fashion — now  and 
then.  As  for  her,  she  asked  nothing  more ; 
she  did  not  know  there  was  anything  more 
to  ask ;  she  was  his ;  they  were  to  be  to 
gether  all  their  lives.  Perhaps  her  admiring 
worship  was  not  unpleasing,  at  first ;  it  made 
him  think  that  he  was  not  wholly  a  bad  fel- 


AN  INHERITANCE  35 

low,  when  he  thought  of  it  at  all.     Then  he 
didn't  care.     Then  he  forgot  it. 

But  everything  was  so  novel,  she  had  no 
time  to  consider  herself;  the  great  world 
was  slipping  by  her  like  the  scenes  of  a 
panorama.  Instead  of  caresses,  she  con 
tented  herself  with  his  masterful  air  of  cool 
proprietorship.  She  was  a  part  of  this 
world,  she  no  longer  stood  outside ;  she 
had  entered  into  its  broad  currents ;  she  was 
a  wife,  the  wife  of  a  man  built  on  the  scale 
of  great  men,  noble,  fine,  past  her  imagin 
ing — alas,  as  yet,  ail  of  her  imagining ! 

She  lived  a  month  in  her  fool's  paradise. 
And  she  awoke  one  night  in  her  room  at 
the  cheap  hotel  where  he  had  left  her 
while  he  pursued  his  pleasures,  to  see  Dr. 
Donner  sitting  in  a  chair  in  the  middle 
of  the  floor,  his  coat  off  and  his  hat  on, 
and  with  other  disarrangements  of  undress, 
his  feet  outstretched,  his  head  hanging  for 
ward,  and  the  gas  blazing  over  him,  lost 
in  a  drunken  doze. 

He  woke  with  a  start  at  her  exclamation, 


36  AN  INHERITANCE 

looked  about  in  a  bewildered  way,  and  then 
his  head  fell  forward  again.      "  Sold  out!  " 
he   was   muttering   to  himself,    in   a   thick 
undertone,    with   now   and    then   an  oath. 
"Thass  so,  Donner.     Gone  for   a  shil'n', 
gone!     Go'  the  price,  though,"  he  mum 
bled  again,  fetching  himself  up  from  another 
doze,  with  a   lurch  on   his  chair.     "  Sma' 
price.     Saddled   with    'cumbrance.      Good 
woman — good  woman's  ever  was — my  Nan 
nie  O,"  with  a  tipsy  laugh;  and  one  foot 
went  up  in  a  jig-step,  to  the  danger  of  his 
equilibrium  on  the  seat.     "  Lock  self  in  an' 
los'  key,"  he  was  babbling,  presently  again. 
"Go'   a  jailer — damn    fool!     Plain's  they 
make  'em.     Worse  'n  a  scarecrow,"  he  ex 
claimed,    angrily,    at    that.      "Puts  me   in 
mind — stock-farm — horses — pot  o'  money," 
and  he  was  nodding  off  again.     "Treat  her 
with  respec',"  he  gurgled  then,  with  another 
start.    ' '  Mis'  Donner — no  foolin' — no  foolin' 
'ith  Mis'  Donner — hear  wha'  I  say  ?     Pot  o* 
money — blamed  'cumbrance,  all  the  same  ! 
Married  her  money,  didn't  marry  her!  " 


AN  INHERITANCE  37 

For  half  an  instant  she  supposed  it  was 
some  sudden  attack  of  illness.  With  the 
next  breath  she  knew  all  about  it.  But  it 
was  as  if  a  thunderbolt  had  struck  her.  She 
lay  cold  and  stiff,  unable  to  move  hand  or 
foot,  a  breath  out  of  the  very  iciness  of 
death  blowing  over  her  as  she  gazed  at  him. 
And  then  her  eyes  grew  hot  with  scalding 
tears,  and  she  was  trembling  like  a  leaf — her 
idol,  her  idol  !  Everything  was  shattered 
with  that,  every  hope,  every  joy.  Her 
heart  was  lead.  The  world  had  come  to 
an  end.  She  gathered  her  senses  with  pain, 
to  wish  wildly  that  she  were  dead,  that  he 
— that  he,  her  love,  her  husband,  had  died 
before  this  evil  chance.  And  while  she  lay 
there  half  lifeless,  now  and  again  a  long 
shudder  sweeping  her  from  top  to  toe,  she 
heard  these  dreadful  words. 

To  tell  the  truth,  they  affected  her  but 
little  at  the  time.  His  love  of  her,  or  the 
contrary,  was  of  small  consequence  now. 
That  went  down  in  all  the  other  ruin. 

But  something  must  be  done.    She  slipped 


38  AN  INHERITANCE 

out  of  bed  as  soon  as  she  could  command 
her  movements,  and  went  to  him,  taking  his 
hat,  unbuttoning  his  collar,  half  holding  her 
head  away  from  his  hideous  breath,  trying 
to  remove  his  boots.  He  slowly  opened 
and  rolled  his  fiery  eyes  upon  her. 

"  Lemme  'lone!"  he  said.  "Lemme 
'lone — cat  !  "  And  then,  as  if  possessed  of 
a  sudden  fury,  he  clenched  his  fist  and  lifted 
it  to  strike  her,  but  paused  with  it  doubled 
in  the  air.  "No,"  he  said.  "Mis'  Don- 
ner.  Treat  her  with  respec'.  All  the 
same,  'cumbrance."  And  he  rose,  swing 
ing  and  steadying  himself,  stepped  off  with 
dignity  on  his  heels,  and  fell  forward  on 
the  side  of  the  bed  in  a  stupor. 

With  all  her  strength  and  all  the  knowl 
edge  she  had  gained  in  her  long  experience 
of  handling  the  sick,  she  at  last  got  off  a 
portion  of  his  clothes,  had  a  cold-water 
compress  on  his  head,  covered  him  up,  put 
the  room  in  order,  and  throwing  on  her 
own  wrapper,  sat  down  for  her  dreadful  vigil 
with  her  dead  happiness. 


AN  INHERITANCE  39 

It  was  in  the  gray  of  the  morning  when 
he  awoke,  with  his  brain  emerging  from  the 
fervors  that  had  obscured  it,  pushed  away 
the  compress  from  his  aching  head  and  saw 
her  kneeling  at  the  window,  her  hair  drop 
ping  round  her  poor,  bent  face,  her  hands 
folded  in  an  intensity  of  prayer,  the  curtain 
up,  a  great  silver  star  shining  over  her  in 
the  whitening  east.  He  looked  at  her  a 
moment  curiously. 

"  Damned  rascal  !  "  he  said  then  to  him 
self.  "Don't  deserve  her.  Looks  like  a 
Saint  Something.  Who  ever  heard  of  a 
Saint  Nancy?"  And  he  laughed  and 
turned  over  into  sleep  again. 

When  he  once  more  awoke,  in  the  middle 
of  the  afternoon  this  time,  she  sat  heating 
over  a  spirit-lamp  a  bowl  of  broth  that  she 
had  ordered  to  the  room.  He  watched  her 
in  silence.  He  was  faint  and  dizzy— it 
seemed  good  to  have  some  one  caring  for 
him.  As  she  turned  and  met  his  eyes,  he 
saw  what  havoc  he  had  wrought  in  her. 
"Made  a  beastly  fool  of  myself  last 


40  AN  INHERITANCE 

night,  Nancy!"  he  said.  "Never  hap 
pened  before.  And  sha'n't  happen  again," 
with  which  two  lies  he  meant  to  comfort 
her.  And  he  did. 

She  ran  to  his  side  and  threw  her  arms 
round  him,  and  forgave  him  everything. 
And  then,  before  he  could  lift  his  hand  to 
caress  her  as  he  had  intended,  she  remem 
bered  those  words  of  his,  those  deadly  bru 
tal  betraying  words  of  his,  and  rose  quickly 
and  drew  back  out  of  his  reach,  frozen  half 
to  marble. 

"No, "she  said,  "I  will  believe  you. 
It  was  an  accident.  A  man  like  you  will 
not  let  himself  down  to  a  lower  level.  You 
will  not  throw  away  your  future. ' ' 

He  had  expected  reproaches  and  beseech- 
ings  and  implorations  for  her  sake.  She 
had  put  it  all  for  his  own  sake.  She  didn't 
cry  out  when  she  was  hurt.  Well,  she  was 
something  of  a  thoroughbred,  after  all. 

He  asked  her,  as  soon  as  he  was  on  his 
feet,  what  she  would  like  for  some  last  en 
joyment  before  going  home,  expecting,  of 


AN  INHERITANCE  41 

course,  she  would  take  a  gala  night  in  all 
the  stir  and  light  and  color  of  the  play. 
But  she  chose  instead  to  hear  a  preacher 
who  had  a  way  of  searching  men's  souls, 
and  he  went  along  with  her.  It  was  a  good 
while  since  he  had  been  in  any  church. 
He  was  rather  amused  with  himself.  He 
looked  about  at  the  people,  expecting  to  be 
amused  by  them,  also.  But  whether  it  was 
the  personality  of  the  preacher,  or  his  mes 
sage,  a  light  seemed  to  flash  out  of  darkness 
upon  John  Dormer,  and  although  it  was 
gone  again  directly,  he  had  it  to  remember. 
He  had  also  to  remember  the  look  in  his 
wife's  face  as  the  great  music  of  choir  and 
organ  rolled  over  them — a  look  in  the  gray 
eyes  that  startled  him  with  the  might  of 
something  beyond  his  ken.  "She  shall 
have  a  pew  of  her  own,"  he  promised  him 
self. 

And  the  next  day  they  started  for  home. 
Home  !  She  half  wondered  at  herself  that 
she  let  him  call  it  so,  and  that  she  went 
with  him  there.  But  in  the  long  sleepless 


42  AN  INHERITANCE 

night  of  her  first  misery  she  had  chosen  her 
way.     She  could  not  go  back  to  the  place 
she  had  left ;  nor  had  she  the  money  to  do 
so ;  all  her  money  was  in  his  hands.     To 
be  sure,    she   could  go  to   work — she   was 
well  and  strong.     "  But  I  promised,"  she 
said,   "for   better,    for   worse.     I   will  not 
break  my  vow  because  his  was  false.     He 
needs  me,   too.      I  must  help  him.     And 
oh,  I  cannot,   I  cannot  leave  him  !     Oh, 
no — oh,  no;  I  love  him  still!"     She  had 
resolved  before,  that  as  he  was  unaware  of 
his  revelation    on  that  drunken  night,   she 
would  never  let  him  know  of  it,  or  guess 
that  she  understood  what  he  had  done,  or 
knew  of  his  feeling  of  repugnance  to  her. 
She  would  appear  to  take  things  for  granted. 
She  had  no  expectation  of  ever  changing 
his  feeling.     That  was  a  thing  impossible, 
she  said,   with  her  hopeless   face,   her  stiff 
manner,  her  lack   of  the   pretty   graces  of 
pretty  women.     In  a  day  and  night  at  a 
grand  hotel  she  had  seen  beautiful  ladies  in 
beautiful    toilets  with  a  sort  of  alarm;    if 


AN  INHERITANCE  43 

she  had  had  their  gowns  she  could  not  have 
worn  them  so ;  she  would  not  have  had  a 
notion  how  to  dress  her  thin,  sleek  hair  in 
the  bewildering  way  of  theirs.     She  com 
prehended  that  there  was  a  fine  art  of  dress 
of  which  she  was  ignorant.     She  saw,  too, 
that  her  husband  was  so  indifferent  to  her 
that  he  was  not  even  ashamed  of  her  poor, 
home-made  finery.     She  felt  as  if  she  would 
like  to  put  on  black,  the  deepest  crape  of 
mourning,  and  wear  it  the  rest  of  her  life ; 
she    never   did   wear    anything   again   but 
sombre  tints  and  the  gray  and  white  which 
afterward  became  a  sort  of  lovely  fashion  of 
her  own.     She  had  seen  his  glance  follow 
ing  those  women — she  would  be  willing  to 
be  boiled  in  oil  if  she  might  become  beau 
tiful  enough  to  be  followed  in  that  way  by 
those  eyes  !     Wild  fancy,  hopeless  thought ! 
And  there  was  work  to  do.     All  that  night 
in  the  rush  and  jolt  of  the  cars   through 
the  defiles  and  up  the  grades  of  the  hills, 
she  prayed  for  John  Donner's  soul,  and  a 
passion    leaped    into   her    prayer   like   the 


44  AN  INHERITANCE 

fresh  blood  to  a  wound,  giving  it  life  that  it 
seemed  must  bring  its  answer. 

And  so  she  took  up  the  days  at  Woods- 
edge,  in  the  old-fashioned  white  house  upon 
the  green,  that  John  had  always  wanted  and 
had  now  bought,  with  its  paddocks  and 
pastures  up  the  hill  behind  it,  on  which  he 
soon  had  a  notable  knot  of  horses — wild, 
lovely  creatures,  that  gave  a  new  life  to  the 
dark  mountain  on  whose  slope  they  gal 
loped. 

It  was  well  for  Mrs.  Donner  that  she  had 
her  household  duties  to  attend  to,  a  house 
wife  by  nature  and  training,  for  otherwise 
she  could  not  have  endured,  with  all  her 
other  trouble,  and  the  confronting  of  the 
strange  women  who  called  upon  her,  the 
presence  of  the  dark  and  unfamiliar  moun 
tains.  She  wanted  to  push  them  off;  they 
worried  and  saddened  and  oppressed  her ; 
she  longed  so  for  a  sight,  a  sound,  a  smell 
of  the  sea,  that  sometimes  her  soul  was  sick 
within  her. 

But  she  knew  that  she  must  put  a  stop  to 


AN  INHERITANCE  45 

all  that,  for  the  little  life  that  was  coming 
must  not  be  clouded  by  the  mother's 
gloom ;  and  she  tried  to  think  of  everything 
that  was  bright  and  beautiful,  and  to  go 
singing  about  her  work  all  the  glad,  sweet 
hymns  she  knew.  She  hung  out  bits  of 
string  and  wool  for  the  building  birds,  and 
felt  as  if  she  had  friends  with  the  other 
mothers  when  they  took  them.  But  she 
had  hard  work  to  keep  her  cheer. 

She  saw  very  little  of  her  husband.  She 
began  to  be  sure  that  he  was  not  obeying 
half  the  calls  that  she  so  laboriously  an 
swered  at  the  door,  and  that  when  he  came 
home  late  at  night  it  was  not  because  he  had 
been  with  the  sick  or  dying.  She  did  not 
exactly  know  where  he  had  been,  of  course. 
But  in  snatches  of  talk  that  she  overheard 
when  Launce  Camperdoun  was  about,  and 
in  other  ways,  she  was  vaguely  aware  of  the 
existence  of  the  tavern  in  between  the  hills, 
of  the  race-course  and  trotting-park  on  the 
intervale  beyond  Loon  Mountain,  of  Daw- 
lish's  on  the  other  side  of  the  quaking 


46  AN  INHERITANCE 

heath,  and  the  roystering  companions,  the 
betting  and  card-playing  there.  As  for  the 
events  that  made  the  life  of  those  places 
gay,  she  had  no  power  of  imagination  to 
picture  them,  and  she  did  not  even  conject 
ure  them.  But  she  had  such  a  reverence 
for  her  husband's  profession,  as  something 
that  stood  guard  at  the  gates  of  life  and 
death  and  waited  on  the  will  of  God,  that 
he  was  himself  involved  in  it  in  a  measure, 
even  when  she  knew  he  was  doing  wrong ; 
he  had  received  a  consecration  ;  he  must  in 
the  end  come  out  right,  and  she  ignored  all 
but  the  end. 

In  the  meantime,  as  far  as  she  could,  she 
made  up  for  his  deficiencies  by  her  own 
presence,  and  with  little  gifts  out  of  the 
pantry-stores  that  had  been  sent  from  her 
old  home  when  broken  up,  and  out  of 
her  abundance  of  jellies  ;  and  with  delicate 
tisanes  and  broths  from  her  kitchen,  too, 
Mrs.  Donner  made  herself  welcome  in  many 
a  sick-room  long  distances  apart ;  and  being 
there,  it  was  she,  who  had  closed  her  moth- 


AN  INHERITANCE  47 

er's  and  her  father's  eyes,  who  made  it  easier 
for  these  others  to  go  out  of  life. 

One  night  when  John  came  home  from  a 
long  bout,  he  found  that  a  patient  whom  he 
had  neglected  and  forgotten  had  been  taken 
home  by  her  where  she  herself  could  do  the 
nursing,  and  where  the  doctor  must  needs  be 
on  hand  more  or  less. 

'*  You  are  a  good  woman,  Nancy,"  he 
said,  after  a  moment. 

"  I  thought  you  would  prefer  it,"  she  re 
plied,  as  if  it  had  been  not  his  suggestion 
but  his  wish. 

"But  I  am  not  going  to  have  the  house 
turned  into  a  hospital  for  every  acquain- 
tance-in-law,  with  you  for  head  nurse,"  he 
said. 

"You  shall  if  you  like." 

And  with  half  an  idea  that  it  had  been 
his  wish,  and  with  an  interest  that  sur 
prised  himself,  be  bent  all  his  skill  to  the 
cure ;  and  Dr.  Donner's  resources  were  not 
small. 

The  people  who  had   wondered  at   Dr. 


48  AN  INHERITANCE 

Dormer  when  he  brought  his  wife  to  Woods- 
edge  were  beginning  now  to  wonder  at 
themselves. 

And  then  the  long  winter  was  at  hand, 
with  the  snows  borne  on  whistling  winds, 
flying  down  the  mountain  passes  and  drift 
ing  deep  in  gorges  and  ravines,  making  it 
seem  as  if  one  were  in  a  dead  world.  But 
although  she  could  not  always  hinder  the 
feeling  of  something  near  despair  creeping 
over  her,  she  never  yielded  to  any  longing 
to  be  dead  herself.  No,  she  desired  to  live 
— whether  he  wanted  her  or  not,  she  had  to 
live  for  John's  sake.  But  he  had  observed 
her  so  little  that  he  was  unaware  of  her  con 
dition  till  lately,  and  she  was  alone  with 
the  nurse  who  had  happened  in — the  doctor 
off  on  a  carouse  at  Dawlish's — the  night  the 
little  boy  was  born. 

It  was  a  stinging  piece  of  her  mind  that 
Martha,  the  nurse,  gave  Dr.  Donner  when 
he  came  home. 

"  That  is  right,"  he  said,  laughing,  "  and 
well  deserved.  And  then  it  would  do  you 


AN  INHERITANCE  49 

harm  to  keep  that  to  yourself — too  much 
venom  in  it  !  Do  you  know,"  he  said, 
quite  with  the  air  of  saying  a  pleasant 
thing,  "if  it  was  a  hundred  years  ago  you 
would  be  treated  to  the  ducking-stool " 

"  A  hundred  years  ago  or  now,  I  know 
w'at  you'd  orter  be  treated  to!"  said 
Martha. 

"  Now,"  he  went  on,  "  we  will  see  if  you 
are  as  good  a  doctor  as  you  are  a  scold." 
And  he  satisfied  himself  that  all  was  right. 
"  You  have  done  me  a  good  turn,  Martha," 
he  said,  "and  I  sha'n't  forget  it,"  and 
then  he  went  to  bed. 

But  the  sight  of  that  white,  patient  face 
upon  the  pillow  had  sobered  him  more  than 
Martha's  words  had  done ;  and  he  had 
kissed  his  wife  and  told  her  she  had  a  son 
that  was  worth  it  all. 

He  never  seemed  to  feel  that  he  had  any 
share  in  the  boy — a  long,  thin  starveling  of 
a  child.  He  hardly  ever  looked  at  him  ex 
cept  when  his  ailing  required  it.  He  never 
liked  to  see  suffering ;  he  was  too  pleasure- 


50  AN  INHERITANCE 

loving  for  that.  But  something  sent  a  thrill 
through  him  one  night  after  his  wife  was 
about,  as  he  saw  her  sitting  by  the  fire  with 
the  child  on  her  arm,  a  look  of  the  rapture 
of  love  shining  on  her  countenance.  He 
stopped  a  moment  and  came  back,  and 
lifted  the  blanket  away  from  the  little  face. 

"  Nancy,"  he  said,  again,  "  you  are  a 
good  woman  !  ' ' 

It  was  all  he  had  to  say,  when  a  month 
later  the  little  weakling  was  laid  away  in  a 
span-long  grave,  that  the  snows  had  been 
hollowed  out  to  make,  and  she  had  swal 
lowed  her  tears,  and  taken  home  the  child 
of  a  neighbor  to  lie  in  her  child's  place  till 
the  mother  should  be  well  of  a  blasting 
fever.  "It  is  our  little  son  who  is  giving 
all  he  had  to  the  baby,"  she  said,  looking 
up  with  the  sorrow  still  in  her  eyes. 

"  Nancy  always  had  beautiful  eyes,"  the 
doctor  thought. 

And  neither  cock-main,  nor  dog-fight, 
nor  a  dance  at  Dawlish's  called  Dr.  Donner 
off  till  the  baby's  mother  was  well  enough 


AN  INHERITANCE  51 

to  take  him  back  and  leave  Nancy's  arms 
empty  again. 

There  came  to  the  door,  not  long  after 
ward,  a  worthless-looking  woman,  with  her 
child  in  the  bundle  she  carried,  and  followed 
by  a  dog.  She  wanted  help  to  get  back  to 
her  own  parish,  where  she  would  go  upon 
the  town. 

"  What  are  you  doing  with  that  trollop  ?  " 
the  doctor  asked,  as  he  saw  his  wife  take 
her  in. 

"I  thought  perhaps  we  could  help  her," 
she  replied.  And  she  bathed  the  woman's 
sore  feet  and  put  her  to  bed ;  and  she  gave 
the  dog  a  bone ;  and  she  washed  the  baby, 
a  fine,  crowing  boy,  and  then  went  to  the 
closet  where  her  own  baby's  clothes  had 
been  put  away.  She  could  not  help  the 
tears  nor  the  kisses  she  gave  the  dear,  soft 
wool  and  cambric  things,  she  who  had  noth 
ing  left  to  kiss.  But  she  dressed  the  lucky 
little  stranger  out  in  them  from  top  to  toe. 

"  That  was  hard  for  you  to  do,  Nancy," 
said  the  doctor,  seeing  her. 


52  AN  INHERITANCE 

"  I  wanted  our  little  boy  to  take  his  part 
in  helping  in  the  world,"  she  replied. 

"  He  is  still  alive  to  you,  in  a  way." 
He  was  drinking  coffee,  and  Nancy's  coffee 
was  a  cordial. 

"  Oh,  yes  !  Even  if  not  here.  And  do 
you  know,"  she  said,  timidly,  and  half 
under  her  breath,  "  does  it — does  it  not 
strike  you — do  you  never  feel  a  sort  of 
— oh  not  pride — to  think  you  are  the — 
father  of  an  angel  ?  ' ' 

"I?"  roared  John,  with  a  clatter  of 
laughter.  "I?  I  never  felt  I  was  the 
father  of  a  child.  You  and  he  are  too  good 
for  me,  I  guess." 

But  it  was,  perhaps,  a  new  wonder  he 
felt  concerning  his  wife,  when  he  found 
that  Sally  with  her  boy  and  the  dog  Brow 
stayed  on  in  Nancy's  kitchen.  They  were 
staying  there  many  a  long  year  after. 

Lonely  or  longing  or  sorry  now,  Nancy 
could  not  let  herself  be  cast  down.  The 
house  must  be  kept  cheerful  for  its  master's 
sake.  And  then  there  was  so  much  ready 


AN  INHERITANCE  53 

for  her  hand  to  do.  In  those  days,  and  in 
that  remote  region,  nurses  were  not  to  be 
had  for  the  asking,  and  friends  and  neigh 
bors  helped  out  the  need  of  every  family 
when  sickness  came;  the  squire's  wife  and 
the  minister's  served  their  turn,  and  already 
there  was  no  one  in  all  the  township  who 
had  such  a  name  for  a  good  watcher  as  Mrs. 
Donner  had.  But  often  in  the  dead  waste 
and  middle  of  the  night  she  drew  aside  the 
curtain  of  the  sick-room  to  look  out  on  the 
snowy  wilderness  and  the  white  hillside 
where  her  baby  lay.  It  was  so  hard  that 
the  cold  snow  should  cover  him,  her  little 
darling,  when  her  heart  yearned  so  to  warm 
him  on  her  breast  !  But  she  said  to  herself 
that  God  hides  His  flowers  in  the  bosom  of 
the  earth  till  summer  shines  again ;  and  she 
remembered  pictures  she  had  seen  where 
the  clouds  about  heaven  were  full  of  chil 
dren's  faces.  Sometimes  she  saw  the  full 
moon  hang  over  that  little  grave  like  a  great 
presence  of  brooding  motherliness ;  and  she 
grew  to  love  the  solemn  encampment  of  the 


54  AN  INHERITANCE 

hills  round  about  it,  and  the  dark -green  firs 
that  now  and  then  shook  down  an  avalanche 
of  crusted  snow  with  a  far  sweet  thunder; 
and  the  stars  seemed  to  come  and  go  be 
tween  the  great  purple  crests,  like  spirits 
keeping  watch  about  that  one  little  spot. 
Occasionally,  when  some  member  of  the 
family  rose  early,  that  she  might  go  home 
and  have  a  short  rest  herself  before  it  was 
yet  light,  she  met  her  husband  coming  in 
the  dawn  from  Dawlish's,  or  from  some  of 
the  cabins  beyond  Loon  Mountain.  If  he 
were  any  way  ashamed,  he  was  still  suffi 
ciently  master  of  himself  to  be  a  little  en 
tertained  by  the  situation  ;  and  it  was  a 
curious  glance  he  gave  her  then  out  of  the 
corner  of  his  eyes,  as  something  he  could 
not  make  out  or  understand.  But  he  knew 
perfectly  well  that  she  was  supplementing 
his  work — sometimes  supplying  its  absence. 

It  happened  that  once  or  twice  in  a  way 
Dr.  Donner,  for  some  reason  or  other, 
whether  compassion  or  a  divine  curiosity, 
had  warmed  to  his  work,  had  searched  out 


AN  INHERITANCE  55 

many  inventions  to  serve  a  patient,  faithful 
by  night  and  day  with  a  faithfulness  that 
fatigued  his  unwonted  spirit,  leaving  no 
power  of  his  will  or  secret  of  his  art  unused  ; 
but  nature  being  too  strong  for  him,  or  the 
abuse  of  nature,  the  case  had  lapsed  into 
failure  ;  and  then  the  people  whom  he  had 
attended  were  bitter  about  his  methods  and 
slandered  his  skill,  and  took  care  that  he 
should  know  it.  ''And  I  must  spend  my 
life  and  waste  my  youth  and  be  made  a 
target  for  these  blunderbusses!"  he  cried. 
"  Oh,  you  know  their  calibre,  Launce,  but 
you  can't  know  their  bore!  "  It  used  to 
cut  him  to  the  quick,  however,  as  the  re 
proaches  he  had  deserved  had  never  cut 
him,  and  his  wife's  resentment  and  fellow- 
feeling  then  were  a  balm  to  his  heart. 
They  gave  him  a  kindlier  mood  in  her  re 
gard,  that  desired  her  sympathy  and  for 
bearance,  and  did  more  for  her  with  him 
than  all  her  simple  goodness  did. 

If  people  were  often  indignant  with  Dr. 
Donner,  they  were,  on  the  whole,  patient. 


56  AN  INHERITANCE 

There  was  no  one  else  very  near ;  they 
regarded  his  talent  as  prodigious,  his  heal 
ing  power  as  something  special  to  himself. 
Now  and  then,  if  rarely,  an  interest  in  some 
malady  seemed  to  take  him  and  absorb 
him ;  now  and  then  he  wrought  some  mira 
cle.  They  fell  into  a  way  of  saying  that 
when  the  need  was  great  enough  Dr.  Don- 
ner  was  always  there. 

"The  merest  nonsense  !  "  he  said  to  his 
wife  once,  when  he  felt  some  extenuation 
necessary,  a  thing  that  a  short  time  since 
would  not  have  occurred  to  him.  "  Brown- 
bread  pills  and  a  phial  of  clear  water  will 
work  half  the  cures,  and  when  I  let  them 
alone  I  am  only  helping  nature  do  her  own 
work." 

"  But  there  is  more,"  she  said,  a  little 
surprised  at  herself,  yet  perhaps  taking 
courage  because  Launce  Camperdoun  was  at 
the  table.  ' '  To  be  a  physician  is  to  make 
a  promise  that  one  would  give " 

"  Everything  required  of  a  physician. 
Well,  I  do,"  he  said,  in  high  good  humor. 


AN  INHERITANCE  57 

"  I  give  them  you.  I  do  one  part,  you  do 
the  other.  But  look  here,  old  lady,  take 
care  you  don't  encroach." 

"Encroach  !  "  she  exclaimed,  before  she 
thought.  "I  should  as  soon  think  of  en 
croaching  on  the  work  of  heaven  !  Oh, 
you  know,"  she  said,  setting  down  her 
cup,  "a.  doctor's  work  is  the  work  of 
heaven.  He  holds  so  many  hearts  in  his 
hand.  He  gives  life  or  death.  He  gives 
hope,  comfort,  relief.  The  people  feel  safe 
thinking  of  him.  They  lean  on  him.  They 
love  him.  He  brings  them  into  the  world, 
he  makes  the  way  easy  for  them  going  out. 
Even  pain  obeys  him.  He  forgets  himself. 
The  weather  doesn't  hinder  him.  Sick  or 
well,  storm  or  shine,  he  is  all  the  time 
doing  the  work  of  his  Master.  Oh,"  she 
added,  looking  up  across  the  table,  her  face 
aglow,  "  I  didn't  mean  to  say  so  much,  but 
it  seems  to  me  that  there  is  no  one  in  the 
world  stands  so  near  the  Lord  as  he 
does " 

"  Hold  on,  hold  on  !  "  cried  John,  with 


58  AN  INHERITANCE 

a  slightly  difficult  laugh.  "  Is  it  possible 
that  I  am  all  this?" 

' '  You  must  be.  You  are  under  doctors' 
vows." 

"By  George,  Nancy!  You  are  enough 
to  put  the  spirit  of  it  into  a  man  !  " 

"You  builded  better  than  you  knew 
when  you  married  that  woman,"  said 
Launce,  as  they  went  out  together. 

"By  God,  I  did  !  "  said  John. 

He  did  not  think  it  was  encroaching 
when,  a  few  weeks  later,  having  left  a  pa 
tient  in  extremity  and  forgotten  how  the 
time  passed,  he  came  back  to  find  the 
mother  resting  comfortably  with  the  new 
born  baby  beside  her,  and  his  wife  in  at 
tendance,  she  having  gone  when  the  third 
summons  for  him  came,  feeling  she  must 
risk  everything  both  for  the  woman  and  in 
his  behalf. 

There  was  not  room  for  two  in  the  gig, 
and  he  walked  home  in  the  thick  night 
beside  her,  the  horse's  head  over  his 
shoulder. 


AN  INHERITANCE  59 

"How  did  you  know  how?"  he  asked, 
presently. 

11 1  didn't,"  she  said.  "  But  I  had  been 
with  three  or  four  cases,  you  know.  And  I 
had  my  own  experience.  I  was  expecting 
Martha  every  minute,  and  she  came  at  the 
very  last.  And  Mrs.  Janes  had  to  be  taken 
care  of.  And  oh,  John,  you  had  to  be  pro 
tected,  too  !  And  I  just  prayed  God  to  help 
me.  And  it  was  life,  and  not  death,  you 
know,  and  that  helped,  too." 

"That  is  the  way  God  helped,"  said 
John,  in  a  low  voice.  "  Well,  Nancy,  you 
have  saved  me  this  time  !  ' ' 

She  went  for  the  lantern,  that  he  might 
put  up  the  horse.  He  took  it,  and  stooped 
and  lifted  her  hand  to  his  lips.  She 
laughed,  with  a  kind  of  childish  pleasure. 
He  swung  the  ray  of  the  lantern  up  across 
her  face. 

"You  are  growing  prettier  every  day, 
Nan,"  he  said. 

1 '  No, ' '  she  answered,  suddenly  pale  and 
cold  again,  "I  am  growing  an  old  woman. 


60  AN  INHERITANCE 

But  we  are  very  good  friends,  I  think, 
John." 

It  happened  that  the  next  day  was  Sun 
day.  Nancy  always  went  to  meeting,  and 
would  have  done  so  even  had  it  not  been 
expected  that  everyone  in  that  community 
should  regard  the  day  as  one  of  solemn 
ceremony,  except  the  doctor,  who  in  a 
measure  was  excused  by  reason  of  his  du 
ties.  Save  for  the  Sunday,  now  so  long  ago, 
when  he  brought  her  home,  Dr.  Donner 
had  taken  advantage  of  his  privileges. 

"See  Mis'  Donner,"  said  Deacon  Ashly 
to  his  wife,  as  they  jogged  home  together, 
"  w'en  the  doctor  come  inter  meetin'  ter- 
day?  She  looked  'sif  'twouldn't  take  much 
to  make  her  drop.  Kinder  took  by  s' prise, 
mebbe." 

"  Sho !  I  guess  nothin'  he  could  du  'd 
take  her  by  s' prise.  She's  jest  all  tuckered 
out,  being  'th  Mis'  Janes  overnight.  Miry 
Dean  was  tellin'  me  between  meetin' s. 
He's  be'n  tendin'  out  on  her,  an'  I  s'pose 
she  thought  Mis'  Janes  was  gone. ' ' 


AN  INHERITANCE  61 

"  He  tol'  me  himself  Mis'  Janes  wuz 
right  as  a  trivet.  So  'twarn't  thet.  But 
I'll  tell  ye  what  I  think,  Mis'  Ashly;  I 
think  Dawlish's'll  hev  seen  the  last  o'  Dr. 
Donner  afore  long  !  ' ' 

"I'll  believe  it  w'en  I  see  it,"  said  Mrs. 
Ashly,  grimly. 

' '  A  good  wife  goes  a  great  way  to  the 
makin'  of  a  good  man,  Mis'  Ashly,"  said 
the  deacon. 

"  Good  or  bad,  Deacon  Ashly,"  said  the 
worthy  dame,  with  decision,  "  there's  never 
be'n  a  doctor  here  between  the  hills  that 
was  Donner's  beat.  Old  Dr.  Pilcott  was 
well  enough  w'en  he  knowed  jes'  w'at  ailed 
ye,  but  Donner  looks  right  inter  the  marrer. 
I  do'  know's  I'd  like  to  trust  myself  in  his 
han's  w'en  that  black  horse  o'  his'n  takes 
him  home  'cause  he  can't  drive  himself. 
But  if  I  did,  he'd  fetch  me  thru  !  " 

"  P'r'aps  so,  p'r'aps  so,"  said  the  deacon. 
"  But  fer  my  part,  I  like  the  man  thet  hes 
ter  tend  my  mortle  body  or  my  immortle 
sperrit  ter  hev  all  his  wits  about  him. ' ' 


62  AN  INHERITANCE 

"  Wai,  part  o'  Dr.  Dormer's  wits  is 
more'n  most  men-folks  hes.  Ef  he  allus 
bed  the  hull  on  'em  about  him  we  shouldn't 
keep  him  long  up  here  'tween  the  hills. 
They'd  be  a-wantin'  of  him  down  ter  Bos 
ton  quicker'n  scat.  I  do'  know  es  it's  very 
profitable  talk  we're  a-havin',  Deacon  Ash- 
ly.  Did  you  see  Miry's  new  shawl?  I 
noted  the  fringe  warn't  es  long  es  mine  by 
an  inch.  Hm.  That's  a  cur' us  text  the 
preacher  hed  this  mornin'.  I  allus  thought 
it  was  a  pretty  varse.  '  Woe  unto  the 
drunkards  of  Ephraim,  whose  glorious  beau 
ty  is  a  fading  flower.'  'Twas  a  good  sar- 
mon,  though." 

"S'archin',"  said  the  deacon,  "  s' arch- 
in1  !  " 

Whether  Dr.  Donner  found  it  searching 
or  not,  the  next  Sabbath  his  wife,  who  had 
hitherto  been  the  guest  of  the  often  empty 
Camperdoun  pew,  sat  in  a  pew  of  her  own, 
carpeted  and  cushioned  in  a  way  to  allevi 
ate  that  mortification  of  the  flesh  for  which 
the  village  congregation  had  apparently  ar- 


AN  INHERITANCE  63 

ranged  the  straight  backs  and  narrow  seats, 
and  on  which  they  would  have  looked  with 
disfavor  had  it  been  for  any  one  but  Mrs. 
Donner. 


Ill 


IT  was  at  about  this  time  that  the  epi 
demic  of  fatal  influenza  broke  out  in  Wood- 
sedge.  There  was  no  loitering  possible 
then,  no  time,  if  it  were  wished,  for  any  life 
at  Dawlish's,  for  any  running  of  horses,  for 
any  meeting  of  sports  between  the  hills ; 
the  calls  were  too  frequent,  too  urgent,  the 
need  was  too  apparent.  But  Dr.  Donner 
rose  to  the  moment.  He  had  forty  cases  on 
his  hands  at  once.  If  he  lost  very  few,  it 
was  due  as  much  to  his  wife  as  to  himself, 
he  said  to  someone  afterward.  "  I  hate  to 
tell  you,"  she  would  say,  when  he  came 
home  from  a  round  of  calls  on  patients  des 
perately  ill,  at  midnight,  wet  through,  per 
haps,  and  tired  to  the  ends  of  his  fingers, 
"  but  there  are  three  other  calls  for  you,  and 
they  all  seem  to  need  you  so.  There  are 
your  dry  clothes  hanging  by  the  fire  for 
64 


AN  INHERITANCE  65 

you  to  change.  And  you  must  take  this 
thick,  hot  soup  first.  Mrs.  Ashly  is  doing 
nicely.  And  I  left  the  minister  an  hour 
ago  sleeping  like  a  baby."  And  while  he 
was  gone  she  kept  the  fire  alive,  getting  her 
naps  only  on  the  sofa,  and  was  bright  and 
ready  for  him,  sometimes  with  a  hot  break 
fast,  when  he  came  back. 

"It  is  dreadful,"  she  sighed.  "I  am 
afraid  you  will  be  down  yourself.  But  it 
seems  as  if  you  must  go.  I  feel — oh,  I  hope 
it  isn't  wicked  ! — I  almost  feel  as  if  you  had 
only  to  say  Talitha  cumi,  and  they  rise  and 
walk." 

"Not  I!  Not  I!"  said  John.  "So 
far  from  it  that  when  I  come  to  the  bed 
sides  of  the  people,  with  nothing  but  my 
small  skill  between  them  and  the  power  of 
the  pest,  I  feel  like  a  worm  with  a  foot 
hanging  over  me.  And  when  I  have  made 
a  cure,  if  I  have  made  it,  I  only  feel  like 
the  same  worm  that  the  foot  has  failed  to 
tread  on  !  " 

Fortunately,  the  epidemic  had  passed,  and 


66  AN  INHERITANCE 

the  mild  spring  weather  had  brought  hope 
and  cheer,  before  Launce  Camperdoun  fell 
ill. 

Whether  the  letter  from  his  Cousin  Bar 
bara  had  had  anything  to  do  with  his  con 
dition  or  not,  the  fever  that  presently  ap 
peared  increased,  with  symptoms  involving 
the  brain  that  gave  the  doctor  a  great  deal 
of  alarm.  He  had  the  more  alarm  that  he 
knew  the  idiosyncrasy  of  the  Camperdouns, 
and  the  danger  there  when  the  brain  was 
called  in  question.  For  Launce  Camper 
doun  had  been  his  friend  from  long  ago,  his 
intimate  even  when  he  was  employed  on  the 
big  farm  breaking  the  Camperdoun  colts, 
his  companion  afterward  in  all  those  times 
when  they  had  heard  the  chimes  at  mid 
night,  the  strength,  the  daring,  the  fresh 
earthiness  of  the  one  feeling  the  subtlety  and 
delicacy  of  a  failing  race  in  the  other  with 
almost  a  passionate  sensibility.  When 
Launce  came  into  the  property,  knowing 
John  Donner's  parts,  he  had  helped  him  to 
his  profession,  often  going  down  for  a  wild 


AN  INHERITANCE  67 

beat  together  about  the  town,  where  John 
always  lost  his  way.  "It  takes  heredity  to 
know  the  Boston  streets,"  John  used  to  say. 
And  he  had  seen  with  Launce  now  and  then 
at  the  Camperdoun  cousin's  house  what 
lovely  women  and  gracious  manners  are. 
Now  the  doctor  called  up  all  he  knew, 
cursed  the  time  that  he  had  been  playing 
instead  of  learning  more,  bent  to  use  every 
energy  he  had,  sent  for  older  doctors  in 
consultation,  let  other  patients  get  along  as 
they  could,  lost  no  moment  and  no  en 
deavor  in  the  struggle  with  this  devouring 
fire,  and  hardly  left  the  house  by  day  or 
night  unless  upon  compulsion  of  some  more 
exacting  or  pitiable  demand,  worn  and  weary 
himself  to  exhaustion,  every  throb  of  that 
tortured  brain  striking  like  a  sharp  blow 
upon  his  own  sensation. 

Martha,  the  nurse,  came  to  help  him,  and 
stayed  afterward  the  remainder  of  the  man's 
life.  But  he  had  sent  her  to  rest  that  day, 
and  it  seemed  to  the  doctor  as  if  a  minister 
of  light  had  come  into  the  room  when  his 


68  AN  INHERITANCE 

wife  closed  the  door  behind  her  and  said, 
softly,  "  They  have  sent  for  you  to  go  down 
to  Three  Rivers — the  Judge's  child.  The 
ride  in  the  wind  will  help  you.  I  can  keep 
on  the  ice-cap  and  the  warm  applications, 
and  give  the  drops  and  attend  to  the  nour 
ishment.  I  am  not  afraid  of  his  delirium. 
I  am  strong.  You  can  trust  me."  And 
he  went,  with  a  sort  of  preknowledge  that 
on  returning  he  should  find  Camperdoun 
better  for  that  calm  and  cooling  presence. 
And  he  did.  There  was  something  about 
Nancy  that  carried  healing  in  its  wake. 

I  don't  know  why  it  occurred  to  Dr.  Don- 
ner  to  do  as  he  did  just  then,  except  for  a 
freak  of  light -heartedness  at  his  patient's 
improvement.  "  He  does  not  look  as  I 
expected,"  he  said,  beckoning  her  into  the 
next  room.  "  Has  he  had  the  drops  from 
the  blue  phial?  If  you  have  forgotten  I 
told  you  to  give  them  I  wouldn't  give  that 
for  his  life !  "  as  he  snapped  his  fingers. 

"Oh!  It  isn't  possible!"  whispered 
Nancy,  clasping  her  hands. 


AN  INHERITANCE  69 

"What  isn't  possible?  Do  you  mean 
to  tell  me  you  forgot  them?"  flashing  on 
.  her  a  strange  glance  from  those  keen  blue 
eyes. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  pale  even  in  the  half- 
light  of  the  curtained  place. 

"Think  a  moment.  You  may  not  re 
member  now.  Perhaps  you  did  give  them 
at  half-past  three,"  closing  the  door  as  he 
spoke. 

"No,"  she  said,  with  white  lips.  "I 
did  not.  Oh,  do  something  !  Oh,  save 
him,  John  !  " 

"Save  him?"  he  repeated,  laughing, 
taking  her  hand  and  leading  her  to  a  seat. 
"  You  have  saved  him  !  He  doesn't  look  as 
I  expected — he  looks  a  great  deal  better. 
And,  of  course,  you  haven't  forgotten  be 
cause  I  never  told  you  to  remember !  ' ' 

"  Oh  !  "  she  said,  pressing  her  fingers  on 
her  eyes  to  keep  the  tears  from  spurting. 
"It  has  startled  me  so." 

"You  mean  I  have.  It  was  cruel,"  said 
John,  still  looking  at  her  steadily.  "  But  I 


70  AN  INHERITANCE 

wanted  to  try  you.  To  see  if  you  would 
tell  a  lie " 

"No,  no!  oh,  no!  " 

"  You  will  not,  I  see,  to  help  yourself.  I 
wonder  if  you  would  to  help  me. ' ' 

"Oh,  don't  you,  don't  you  ask  me !  " 

"But  if  I  were  in  difficulty  about  — 
Well,  I  will  put  it  to  you.  If  I  am  called 
into  court  for  malpractice — that  broken  arm 
of  Miss  Turpey's  —  and  your  testimony 
would  clear  me,  testimony  about  which  I 
would  instruct  you " 

"And  not  true?  " 

"  Not  true,  of  course." 

"  Oh,  don't  let  me  be  summoned  !  "  she 
cried,  her  hand  over  her  mouth  the  next 
moment.  "  Oh,  John,  don't  let  me  be 
tried  so  !  I  could  not ;  oh,  I  could  not  !  " 

"  You  would  rather  I  went  to  prison, 
then!  " 

"  Oh,  no,  no,  no  !  I  would  not  testify 
against  you.  I  would  be  silent " 

"  That  would  be  contempt  of  court ;  and 
you  would  go  to  prison  yourself." 


AN  INHERITANCE  7* 

"  I  could  go.  I  could  be  as  happy  there 
as  anywhere.  But,  oh,  if  you  could  spare 
me  that !  "  she  half  sobbed.  "  I  have  tried 
to  be  a  good  wife — a  helpmeet — to  do  my 
duty " 

' <  A  good  wife !  You  are  my  good 
angel !  People  call  you  Dr.  Donner's  good 
angel  !  ' '  And  he  leaned  forward  and  kissed 
off  the  two  great  tears  rolling  down  her  face. 
"  By  George  !  but  tears  are  salt,"  he  said, 
laughing.  "  There,  there,  I'm  a  hardened 
villain,  very  like,  but  there's  no  such  case. 
I  only  wanted  to  see  what  is  this  stuff  you 
are  made  of.  I  never  saw  anyone  just  like 
you,  Nancy.  I  believe  you  are  descended 
from  one  of  the  children  Christ  laid  his 
hands  on  !  "  and  although  she  knew  it  was 
profane  she  felt  that  it  was  pleasant. 

If  she  were  a  little  angry,  she  was  also 
a  little  glad.  '  She  never  forgot,  though, 
that  he  had  no  love  for  her — the  sense  of 
those  old,  wicked  words  of  his  was  seldom 
out  of  her  consciousness.  But  she  was  glad 
that  he  felt  not  unkindly  toward  her.  She 


72  AN  INHERITANCE 

alternated  the  watches  with  him  after  that, 
till  the  immediate  danger  was  over.  And 
when  the  doctor  was  going  on  his  daily 
rounds  again,  she  came  across  the  green  with 
her  little  tempting  dish,  or  her  kindly  pleas 
ant  talk,  and  let  Martha  off  for  an  hour ;  an 
hour  in  which  she  made  the  weak  and  sad 
man  feel  as  if  he  had  a  home,  and  envy 
the  other  man  who  had  married  the  girl  of 
straight  lines  for  her  money. 

It  was  Mrs.  Donner  who  detected  first 
in  Camperdoun's  melancholia  symptoms  of 
the  degeneration  that  the  doctor  had  dread 
ed.  ''There  is  only  one  thing  to  do," 
said  John,  "and  that  is  to  reduce  him 
to  an  animal,  feed,  and  overfeed,  cush 
ion  these  rasped  nerves  in  fat,  and  send 
new  red  blood  to  enrich  the  exhausted 
brain." 

"Yes,"  said  Nancy.  "And  he  will 
always  be  subject  to  attack  ?  ' ' 

"  You  will  have  it  to  see  to  as  long  as  he 
lives,"  said  the  doctor,  looking  at  her  care 
fully. 


AN  INHERITANCE  73 

"It  is  very  little  to  do,"  she  said.  "  I 
am  glad  to  do  it." 

"  My  poor  wife  !  "  he  said,  "  you  mar 
ried  into  trouble.  But  if  there  is  any  way 
known  under  heaven  among  men  to  hinder 
his  becoming  a  victim  to  the  family  curse — 
But  there  isn't;  no,  there  isn't!  And, 
Nancy — somehow  it  hurts  me  —  if  I  had 
been  a  better  man  he  might  have  gone  up 
with  me  instead  of  down — God  knows ! 
But  what's  done  is  done,  and  what's  to  do 
is  still  to  do.  Possibly  Camperdoun  would 
have  been  much  the  same,  anyway. ' ' 

"  I  understand,"  said  Mrs.  Donner. 

"  But  I  could  give  myself  in  his  place," 
the  doctor  went  on,  more  as  if  to  himself 
than  to  her,  "and  that's  a  fact !  I  never 
had  anyone  very  near  me  since  I  was  in 
boots.  I  think  I  have  loved  Camperdoun 
more  than  any  living  thing.  You  care  for 
him,  too,  Nancy.  By  mighty !  he  thinks 
well  of  you  !  ' ' 

It  was  like  a  cold  hand  on  her  heart 
when  he  said  he  loved  Camperdoun  so  dear- 


74  AN   INHERITANCE 

ly.  But  why  be  foolish  ?  She  knew  that 
already.  And  it  was  something  that  he 
made  her  so  kindly  his  confidante — and 
then  he  had  called  her  his  wife  ! 

The  doctor  came  in  one  twilight  when 
she  had  been  with  Camperdoun,  as  usual,  an 
hour  or  two.  He  had  been  inclined  to  vio 
lence,  and  she  had  soothed  him,  singing. 
She  sat  beside  the  brooding  man,  and  sang, 

44  Art  thou  weary,  art  them  languid, 

Art  thou  sore  distressed  ? 
Come  to  me,  saith  One,  and  coming, 
Be  at  rest." 

It  was  not  much  of  a  voice,  hardly  more 
than  a  sweet  and  gentle  sigh  set  to  tune. 

4t  If  I  ask  him  to  receive  me, 

Will  he  say  me  nay  ? 
Not  till  earth,  and  not  till  heaven 
Pass  away  !  " 

But  as  Dr.  Donner  paused  and  flung  him 
self  into  an  arm-chair  in  the  shadow,  and 
saw  her  singing,  the  light  on  her  face, 
white  and  wan,  with  a  something  pathetic 
about  the  mouth,  but  with  lifted  eyes  that 


AN  INHERITANCE  75 

seemed  looking  into  heaven,  he  understood 
that  she  was  doing  her  work  neither  for  love 
of  him  now  nor  for  love  of  the  sufferer,  but 
for  the  love  of  God,  and  only  the  love  of 
them  in  him.      "  And  I  might  have  had  the 
heart  of  that  woman,"  he  thought ;    for  he 
knew   his  deserts  too  well  to  suppose   she 
could  be  caring  for  him  now  after  the  life 
he  had  led  her  these  three  years.     And  then, 
in  a  greater  humility,  the  soul  within  him 
cried,  "But  what  am  I,  that  such  a  spirit 
bearing  such  a  light  walks  through  my  life 
at  all  ?  "  and  he  stole  out  as  softly  as  he  had 
entered.     Opening  his  door  that  night,  he 
was  for  the  first  time  struck  by  the  differ 
ence  between  the  interior  of  his  house  and 
that  of  the  old  Camperdoun  mansion.     He 
had  bought  the  place  of  the  Pilcott  heirs,  as 
it   stood,  bare   but   comfortable,  and  what 
pleasant    look   it   had   was   owing  only   to 
Nancy's  home-making  qualities.      "  It  isn't 
fit  for  her !  "  he  exclaimed  to  himself.     And 
when  she  came  home  from  some  of  her  calls 
of  mercy  one  night,  a  print  of  Guercino's 


76  AN  INHERITANCE 

Aurora  hung  over  the  fire  in  the  parlor,  and 
Murillo's  Madonna,  with  the  moon  beneath 
her  feet,  was  looking  down  from  the  mantel 
of  the  sleeping-room.  And  after  that,  bit 
by  bit,  a  vase,  a  cast,  a  lovely  book,  ap 
peared  in  the  house.  "  He  likes  pleasant 
things  about  him,"  thought  Nancy.  He 
had  married  her  so  viciously,  he  had  neg 
lected  her  so  long,  he  could  not  tell  her 
they  were  for  her.  > 

One  evening,  when  Camperdoun  was 
quite  himself  again,  Dr.  Donner  found  his 
wife  reading,  as  often  before,  to  the  con 
valescent,  and  talking  in  the  intervals  in  the 
confidential  way  that  had  grown  up  be 
tween  them.  He  waited  a  moment  in  the 
adjoining  room.  She  was  not  a  woman,  as 
you  know,  of  much  culture  or  of  more  than 
average  mental  quality,  but  she  had  far 
more  than  the  average  capacity  for  loving. 

It  was  a  little  volume  of  Wordsworth  she 
was  holding ;  she  had  been  reading  some 
of  the  ballads  that  she  felt  had  a  kinship 
with  the  life  of  this  hill  country.  "  We 


AN  INHERITANCE  77 

used  to  parse  this  in  school,"  she  said, 
"  «  The  Happy  Warrior.'  I  wonder  if  you 
will  understand  how  it  makes  me  think  of 
my  husband." 

«  Of  John  !  "  cried  Camperdoun. 

"I  don't  mean  altogether  what  he  is — 
though  he  is  so  much,"  she  said,  a  little 
timidly,  "but  of  what  he  might  be — will 
be.  I  think  of  him,"  she  said,  opening 
the  book  again  and  reading,  "  as  one 

"  4  Who,  doomed  to  go  in  company  with  Pain, 
And  Fear,  and  Bloodshed,  miserable  train  ! 
Turns  his  necessity  to  glorious  gain,' 

"  And  then 

"  '  More  able  to  endure 
As  more  exposed  to  suffering  and  distress  ; 
Thence,  also,  more  alive  to  tenderness.' 

"And   you   yourself  must   see,"  she  said, 

turning  the  leaf,  "  that  his 

1 '  '  — powers  shed  round  him  in  the  common  strife, 
Or  mild  concerns  of  ordinary  life, 
A  constant  influence,  a  peculiar  grace.' 

"And  he  never  goes  out  in  the  night  but  I 
say  to  myself, 


78  AN  INHERITANCE 

•"  Or  if  an  unexpected  call  succeed, 

Come  when  it  will,  is  equal  to  the  need.' 

"Yes,  yes,"  she  said,  still  running  her 
eye  along  the  page,  "it  is  true  of  him  all 
through  !  And  I  know,  I  know,  that  when 
the  end  comes  he  will  be  the  man  who, 

"  '  While  the  mortal  mist  is  gathering,  draws 

His  breath  in  confidence  of  Heaven's  applause.'  " 

"  But,  man  alive,"  said  Mr.  Camperdoun, 
"  that  is  about  a  soldier." 

"And  John  is  a  soldier.  You  know — 
if  he — if  he  has  anything  to  encounter  in 
himself  and  his  surroundings,"  said  Nancy, 
hesitatingly.  "  And  there  are  the  forces  of 
nature  he  has  to  fight  as  he  goes  about  the 
hills  in  sun  and  storm  and  wind  and  rain, 
by  night  and  day.  And  there  are  the 
forces  of  evil  in  pain  and  suffering  and  sor 
row  that  he  fights  with,"  she  exclaimed. 
"And  sometimes  he  fails,  and  so  much 
more  often  they  go  down  !  ' ' 

"Well,  well,  then,  you  are  an  eloquent 
little  cuss — I  mean  customer.     I  beg  your 


AN  INHERITANCE  79 

pardon,  Mrs.  Donner.  John  Donner  is  a 
lucky  dog!  " 

But  as  John  Donner  stood  up  and  groped 
his  way  out,  he  was  not  so  sure  of  that. 
And  it  was  something  very  like  a  hoarse 
sob  one  might  have  heard  if  walking  home 
behind  him.  How  could  he,  who  had  mar 
ried  and  abused  this  woman  so,  tell  her 
now  the  truth?  He  trembled  before  the 
thought  of  it. 

He  went  out  on  another  call  presently, 
however.  The  profession  he  had  chosen 
was  compelling  him  to  recognize  its  power. 
He  found  himself  feeling  as  deep  an  interest 
in  his  cases  as  if  he  saw  the  action  of  a 
drama  with  mighty  agents  on  the  board. 
It  began  to  make  him  melt  among  his  kind, 
as  if  he  were  to  be  poured  out  and  spent  in 
their  service.  He  had  never  been  quite  the 
same  since  the  night  Janes  broke  down, 
when  he  told  him  his  wife  would  win 
through,  and  had  cried,  and,  greatly  to  his 
embarrassment,  kissed  both  his  hands,  sur 
prising  him  as  much  as  if  a  side  of  sole 


8o  AN  INHERITANCE 

leather  had  suddenly  showed  human  feeling. 
It  was  directly  afterward  that  he  had  been 
called  to  the  little  girl  scalded  past  help,  the 
only  child  left  to  her  mother,  a  gay-hearted 
Irish  woman,  shut  into  a  dark  hut  in  the 
notch  of  the  hills.  "  Mother  of  God !  "  the 
woman  was  wailing,  "you  saw  your  own 
child  suffer,  so  you  did.  But  he  was  a  man 
grown,  more  betoken !  Whist  now,  Biddy, 
darlint,  it's  tearing  the  harrt  out  of  me,  ye 
are!" 

The  child's  eyes,  pools  of  darkness  and 
pain,  turned  on  him  with  a  look  that  filled 
his  own  with  tears;  and  the  sight  of  her 
torment,  the  clenching  of  her  little  hand  on 
his,  broke  up  all  the  fountains  of  his  pity. 

"  Bridget,  I  would  bear  it  for  her  if  I 
could !  "  he  said,  with  a  sudden  persuasion 
that  he  would,  and  had  gently  put  the  little 
child  into  her  last  sleep  ;  and  the  love  that 
could  die  for  another  on  the  cross  itself  had 
for  the  first  time  a  personal  reality  in  his 
thought.  The  reality  of  it  grew  stronger 
when  he  saw  Mrs.  Morris,  in  the  throes  of 


AN  INHERITANCE  81 

an  agony  that  was  taking  her  into  her  grave, 
murmuring  hymns  and  verses  that  had  given 
her  comfort,  leaning  on  the  divine  assurance 
as  if  upon  a  bed  of  roses,  and  herself  inspir 
ing  his  terrible  knife  with  courage.  At  the 
beginning  he  had  been  used  to  say  that  in 
the  presence  of  any  such  anguish  there  could 
be  no  omnipotent  power  that  was  not  also  a 
malignant  one  ;  but  now  he  had  a  vision  of 
the  strength  given  and  the  heights  scaled  by 
suffering. 

But  while  he  was  gone  to  his  patient,  on 
the  night  when  he  had  heard  his  wife  read 
ing  from  the  "  Happy  Warrior  "  to  Cam- 
perdoun,  Nancy  came  home  and  saw  her 
crab-cactus  in  its  full  flush  of  pendulous 
bloom,  and  although  the  early  November 
dark  had  fallen,  she  threw  on  her  shawl 
again  to  take  the  pot,  as  it  had  often  gone 
before,  a  little  missionary  flower,  to  the 
house  of  a  sick  person  who  had  so  much 
that  all  she  could  give  her  was  the  blossom 
ing  of  this  plant. 

When  she  came  out  of  the  house  again, 


82  AN  INHERITANCE 

having  done  her  errand,  a  bright  light 
streaming  through  the  mist  from  a  knoll  ap 
parently  not  far  away  attracted  her;  and 
thinking  of  forest  fires  and  their  dangers, 
she  walked  on  a  little  way  in  their  direction 
outside  the  village,  without  remembering 
that  it  was  the  night  the  boys  up  there  built 
their  Guy  Fawkes  bonfires,  according  to  the 
custom  still  surviving  in  a  few  towns,  their 
fathers  taking  advantage  of  the  frolic  to  get 
their  brush  and  rubbish  burned. 

She  was  not  unhappy  as  she  went;  the 
constant  undercurrent  of  her  feeling  was  that 
she  had  boundless  goodness  to  be  grateful 
for  in  the  growing  change  in  her  husband's 
life  and  in  his  different  manner  toward  her. 
She  never  suffered  herself  to  be  misled  by 
that ;  he  was  naturally  a  kind  man;  but  she 
had  heard  the  truth  from  his  own  lips.  All 
the  more  she  yearned  in  her  affection  and  in 
spite  of  herself  longed  for  his  love.  When 
ever  she  had  looked  at  any  pretty  girl  upon 
the  way,  she  had  felt  as  if  there  were  no 
physical  pain,  no  other  possible  disaster,  she 


AN  INHERITANCE  83 

would  not  be  glad  to  undergo,  if  she  might 
come  out  as  fair  as  that  and  have  her  hus 
band  regard  her  as  the  minister  regarded  the 
rosy,  beaming  thing  he  had  brought  home. 

She  was  not  thinking  of  any  of  this, 
however,  but  that  she  ought  to  turn  back 
now ;  when  suddenly  a  score  of  bonfires 
sprang  out  of  the  darkness  on  the  ledges  of 
the  neighboring  hills,  shadowy  figures  run 
ning  before  them  with  a  gypsy-like  sugges 
tion.  She  paused,  turning  from  one  to  an 
other,  and  then,  starting  to  retrace  her  steps, 
found  herself  bewildered  as  to  the  way,  for 
there  was  neither  moon  nor  star,  and  the 
November  mists  gave  a  sort  of  weirdness  to 
the  fires.  She  went  on  presently  in  what  she 
supposed  the  right  direction,  hesitating  at 
last  with  a  strange  sense  of  unacquaintance 
even  in  the  gloom.  She  was  not  one,  how 
ever,  that  often  allowed  herself  to  fear,  and 
she  went  on  again,  sure  that  she  must  pres 
ently  come  upon  some  way-mark,  and  sud 
denly  stopped  with  one  foot  in  water  and 
the  other  on  yielding  moss,  and  found  that 


84  AN  INHERITANCE 

in  some  incomprehensible  way  she  had 
taken  the  wrong  turn,  and  had  reached  the 
first  edge  of  the  great  quaking  heath,  on  the 
border  of  the  town,  the  terror  of  the  mothers 
in  the  place,  but  where  the  more  daring 
went  for  blueberries  in  the  summer-time, 
the  heath  which  was  only  a  bed  of  moss  and 
peat  lying  on  a  subterranean  lake.  She 
stood  still  then,  for  it  would  not  do  to  move 
and  plunge  into  she  knew  not  what,  and 
after  a  minute  or  two  she  began  to  call  for 
help,  nothing  answering  her  but  the  echoes 
of  her  voice  beating  from  hill  to  hill  with 
airy  music  that  had  no  sound  of  music  to 
her. 

Still,  there  was  not  any  danger,  unless  a 
wildcat,  or  something  of  the  sort,  came 
down  from  the  mountains.  She  stooped  and 
groped  with  her  hands  for  a  hummock,  found 
one  directly  beside  her  that  seemed  dry  and 
firm,  and  sat  down  and  waited,  every  now 
and  again  calling,  and  experiencing  a  kind 
of  awe  of  the  flapping  echoes.  She  was  not 
afraid ;  she  was  usually  not  at  all  afraid  of 


AN  INHERITANCE  85 

death  in  the  abstract.  If  it  had  not  been 
for  feeling  that  John  must  not  be  left,  she 
would  never,  in  these  years  of  her  marriage, 
have  closed  her  eyes  at  night  without  a  wish 
that  she  might  not  unclose  them  in  the  morn 
ing.  But  the  loneliness  and  darkness  now 
filled  her  with  vague  horror,  and  she  left  off 
calling  and  began  singing  softly  to  herself 
the  hymns  she  loved  best,  as  if  she  sur 
rounded  herself  with  their  sacred  power, 
and  with  perhaps  some  of  the  same  feeling 
as  that  which  once  used  certain  rites  and  ob 
servances  to  keep  evil  spirits  at  bay. 

But  when  Dr.  Donner  returned,  as  the 
nine-o'clock  bell  was  ringing,  and  found  his 
wife  neither  awaiting  him,  as  usual,  nor 
coming  in  presently,  he  made  inquiry  of 
Sally,  and  was  concerned  to  find  that  she 
was  already  concerned,  as  there  was  no  very 
sick  person  for  Mrs.  Donner  to  forget  herself 
over,  and,  moreover,  she  had  said  she  would 
be  back  directly.  He  went  once  or  twice  to 
the  window,  shielding  it  from  the  bright 
firelight  that,  painting  upon  the  outer  dark- 


86  AN  INHERITANCE 

ness  the  scene  within,  gave  him  a  fleeting 
thought  of  life  itself  as  something  unreally 
painted  on  the  darkness.  Tea  had  been  wait 
ing  a  long  while.  He  went  to  the  door,  and 
looked  up  and  down  into  the  night.  He 
remembered  how  not  long  since  he  would 
have  laughed  at  the  thought  of  this  anxiety, 
and  he  hated  the  man  that  he  had  been. 

But  after  a  while  he  had  found  it  impos 
sible  to  wait,  and  he  sallied  forth  again  to 
find  her  and  come  home  with  her ;  and  by 
eleven  o'clock  he  had  called  at  every  door 
in  the  east  end  of  the  village,  growing  more 
and  more  alarmed  with  his  own  alarm,  and 
shortly  finding  himself  surrounded  by  the 
lanterns  of  fifty  people  following  the  high 
way,  separating  down  this  and  that  lane, 
coming  together  again,  men  and  women 
alike,  calling  her  name,  listening  for  a  hal 
loo,  full  of  excitement  and  fear,  he  him 
self  silent,  and  as  if  he  had  in  him  the  re 
pressed  force  of  a  whirlwind. 

Suddenly  Sally  darted  past  him,  following 
Brow,  the  dog,  with  his  nose  down.  And 


AN  INHERITANCE  87 

the  doctor  then  was  after  them  breathlessly, 
all  the  lanterns  dancing  and  sparkling  be 
hind  him,  and  in  their  light,  before  she 
caught  sight  of  him,  he  saw  Nancy  sitting  on 
the  hummock  in  the  marsh,  white  and  calm, 
as  she  sang  her  hymn  and  stopped  quickly 
at  Brow's  baying  and  leaping  and  caressing. 
In  an  instant  he  had  sprung  across  and 
reached  her  and  clasped  her  in  his  arms. 
"  Oh,  my  wife,  my  darling!  "  he  was  ex 
claiming.  And  she  looked  up  in  amaze 
ment,  for  his  tears  were  streaming  over  her 
cheek. 

Mrs.  Donner  had  never  expected  to  be  so 
happy,  in  all  her  life  before,  she  never  ex 
pected  then  to  be  so  happy  again  as  she  was 
that  night  when,  friends  and  neighbors  gone 
after  their  glad  entertainment,  her  husband, 
kneeling  on  the  rug  before  her,  as  she  sat  by 
the  fire,  drew  her  face  down  and  kissed  her 
on  the  mouth — the  long,  deep,  silent  kiss  of 
perfect  love. 

"I  thought  I  had  lost  you,  Nancy,"  he 
half  sobbed  in  pity  of  himself.  "  I  never 


88  AN  INHERITANCE 

knew  life  could  be  such  a  desert.  Oh,  you 
must  teach  me  to  be  good  as  you  are,  half  as 
good  as  you  are,  and  to  deserve  the  mercy  I 
have  had,  my  wife,  my  wife  !  " 

But  in  his  arms  out  there  on  the  edge  of 
the  morass,  half  a  flashing  thought  with  her 
had  been  followed  by  remembrance  that  he 
was  never  to  dream  she  knew  he  had  married 
her  as  he  did.  And  here  in  this  ecstatic  mo 
ment,  while  her  transfigured  face  glowed  in 
the  firelight  almost  like  a  thing  of  beauty, 
unaware  of  change  and  development  in  him 
self  the  consciousness  possessed  him  that  this 
precious  being  was  never  to  be  so  hurt  as  to 
be  allowed  to  dream  that  her  marriage  had 
been  desecration,  that  he  loved  her  more 
now  than  he  had  always  loved  her,  other 
than  in  the  knowledge  that  love  grows  and 
increases  as  the  flower  grows  from  the  bud,  as 
the  flame  swells  from  the  well-fanned  fire,  as 
the  world  grows  from  shapeless  nebula  to  star. 

But  it  was  only  to  John  Donner's  eyes 
that  beauty  blossomed  in  this  pale  face.  To 
the  rest  of  the  small  village  world  there  was 


AN   INHERITANCE  89 

no  change  in  Mrs.  Donner;  they  wanted 
none,  indeed.  Pure  goodness  and  the  light 
of  a  great  happiness  made  that  face  fair 
enough  for  them. 

Life  then  began  again  for  John  Donner. 
He  knew  that  he  had  been  delivered  from 
evil.  He  felt  that  it  was  for  a  purpose.  All 
along  of  late  he  was  aware  that  he  had  been 
taking  this  in  hand  and  taking  that  to  please 
Nancy.  Suddenly,  whether  he  had  caught 
the  habit  from  life  with  her,  from  growing 
sympathy,  or  whether  a  miracle  had  been 
wrought,  his  endeavor  was  to  please  a  higher 
power.  It  was  Nancy  who  had  said  a  doctor 
did  God's  work  in  the  world,  and  here  he 
was  doing  it  with  an  eager,  silent  joy ;  do 
ing  it  all  the  more  that  his  life  with  Nancy 
seemed  a  part  of  it.  Sickness  and  suffering 
and  sorrow  loomed  before  him  so  appallingly 
that  he  felt  as  if  threescore  and  ten  years 
would  be  too  few  for  his  share  of  the  work. 
Although  he  still  bred  and  sold  his  horses, 
the  race-course  beyond  Loon  Mountain  knew 
him  no  more.  The  Break  o'  Day  house 


90  AN  INHERITANCE 

forgot  him.  He  went  over  to  Dawlish's 
when  they  sent  for  him,  and  helped  a  man 
there  wallowing  in  abject  fear  back  to  life 
again.  He  was  friendly  as  before ;  he  had  no 
right  to  be  otherwise,  he  said ;  he  had  been 
one  of  them — only  the  Lord  had  given  him 
Nancy.  But  they  all  knew  the  difference 
there;  they  excused  him.  "A  man  ain't 
any  business  foolin'  'ith  dead  an'  dyin',  and 
'ith  us,  too,"  they  said. 

"  It's  the  same  Johnny,"  said  one  of  the 
girls,  "  only  he's  gittin'  his  fun  out'n  the 
other  thing." 

"  I  guess  a  man  ain't  seen  fer  long  the 
misery  a  doctor  has,  to  be  as  light  as  Johnny 
Donner  uster  be,"  said  an  older  woman. 
"  That  night  he  took  the  mortal  pain  ofFn 
my  baby  I  says  to  myself,  says  I,  '  That 
man  won't  be  settin'  'em  up  long  at  Daw 
lish's,'  says  I." 

"  Tut,  tut,  tut,  then,"  remarked  the  old 
white-headed  crone  sucking  her  pipe  in 
the  corner.  "  Ain't  you  got  eyes  ?  Johnny 
Donner  has  gone  on." 


AN  INHERITANCE  91 

"He's  hed  his  part  'ith  publishers  an' 
sinners,  I  guess,"  said  the  woman  with 
the  baby.  "  Granny's  right ;  he's  gone 

on." 

He  was  driving  home  one  night  from 
behind  Loon  Mountain,  where  he  had  done 
some  surgical  work,  while  the  people  there 
were  in  their  turn  discussing  him. 

"  Don't  see  much  o'  Johnny  Donner 
now,"  one  said.  "They  say  he's  got  re 
ligion.  But  he's  got  the  same  twinkle  into 
his  eye,  fer  all  I  see." 

"P'r'aps  it's  religion,"  argued  another, 
whittling  his  tobacco  ;  "but  w'en  I  see  him 
do  that  lightning  act  'ith  his  knives  an'  ban 
dages,  it  looked  the  leastestest  mite  'sif  he'd 
sold  his  soul  to  the  Old  Boy,  it  did  !  " 

"Wai,"  drawled  the  patient  from  his 
cot,  "  I  do' no'  w' ether  he's  got  religion  or 
religion's  got  him  ;  but  ef  you'd  ben  whar  I 
were  this  time  yesterday,  you'd  'a'  thought 
'twas  the  han's  o'  the  livin'  Lord  a-draggin' 
of  you  out  o'  hell ;  you'd  'a'  wanted  them 
to  hold  on  their  grip.  You'd  'a'  knowed 


92  AN   INHERITANCE 

that  man's  made  fer  suthin*  else  than  the 
nights  at  the  Break  o'  Day." 

Perhaps  in  less  coarse  phrase  this  was 
presently  the  sentiment  of  all  Woodsedge 
and  its  dependencies. 

One  year  followed  another,  and  you 
would  have  said  that  Dr.  Donner  had  for 
gotten  there  was  anything  in  the  world  but 
sickness  and  suffering,  except  for  the  joy 
within  his  own  doors — for  all  around  his 
wife  in  her  deep  happiness  now  there  was 
the  calm  of  perfect  peace.  And  when  little 
John  was  born,  he  seemed  himself  to  enter 
a  sacrament  with  God  and  his  wife  and  his 
son.  He  had  not  greatly  loved  at  the  time 
the  little  motherling  who  lay  on  the  hill 
side  ;  he  loved  him  now  with  a  reflex 
love — he  was  Nancy's  child ;  he  was  the 
brother  of  little  John.  He  had  the  figure 
of  a  small,  sculptured  angel  set  up  there 
in  shining  stone,  and  took  Nancy  to  see  it, 
with  the  new  baby  in  her  arms,  turning 
the  corner  of  dark  cedars  to  come  suddenly 
upon  it. 


AN  INHERITANCE  93 

You  knew  the  pulse  of  Woodsedge  pres 
ently  as  you  met  the  doctor.  There  was 
fine  weather  and  but  slight  ailing  when  you 
saw  him  in  the  chaise  with  Nancy  and  the 
baby.  There  was  little  or  nothing  the  mat 
ter  with  people  when  you  saw  him,  a  year 
or  two  later,  with  the  boy  in  the  chaise, 
and  Brow  sitting  upright  on  guard  beside 
him.  Things  were  not  so  very  serious  with 
the  health  of  the  hills  when  you  saw 
him  plodding  along,  with  Brow  following. 
But  when  you  saw  him  alone  in  his  gig,  his 
head  bent  down,  his  face  brooding,  driving 
the  successor  of  Satan  as  if  his  namesake 
were  after  him,  you  knew  there  was  work  to 
do,  and  that  Dr.  Donner  was  doing  it. 

Time  and  work,  watching  and  waiting 
and  weather  made  his  features  rugged,  and 
powdered  hair  and  beard,  but  his  forehead 
kept  its  whiteness,  his  eyes  their  keen  glow. 
There  was  no  house  or  hearth  for  twenty 
and  more  miles  around  where  the  dwellers 
had  not  grown  to  regard  him  as  they  would 
a  direct  vicegerent  of  heavenly  power. 


94  AN  INHERITANCE 

Here,  as  the  long  day  broke  with  its  stretch 
of  pain,  he  was  sure  to  come  and  fill  the 
morning  with  hope.  Here,  as  the  dark 
drew  on  with  its  awful  shadow  and  dread, 
he  brought  help  to  bear  it,  courage  for 
these,  and  blessed  sleep  and  surcease  of  pain 
for  those.  Here,  when  the  need  was  bitter, 
he  had  given  not  only  such  science  and  ef 
fort  as  he  had,  but  he  gave  himself,  staying 
night  and  day  and  night  again,  lost  in  the 
fight  with  pain  and  grief,  with  despair  and 
death,  with  dark  and  terrible  destinies. 
The  people  felt  as  if  there  were  life-giving, 
health-compelling  power  in  his  touch,  that 
those  eyes  of  his  could  penetrate  to  the  root 
of  hidden  evil ;  they  had  been  born  into  his 
hands,  their  dead  had  died  in  his  arms. 
Some  of  the  older  ones  said  there  had  been 
wild  stories  of  Dr.  Donnerin  his  youth  ;  but 
they  seemed  to  have  forgotten  what  they 
were.  The  younger  ones  had  the  more  con 
fidence  in  him  it  may  be  because  of  that ; 
they  remembered  no  time  when  he  had  not 
been  there,  possessing  all  their  trust;  they 


AN  INHERITANCE  95 

felt  as  they  would  had  he  been  a  figure  up 
holding  the  sky— that  the  sky  would  fall 
without  him.  One  and  all,  when  he  went 
by,  said,  "There  goes  a  good  man,"  the 
feeling  so  fervent  that  it  burned  away  all  but 
the  simplest  phrase. 

He  had  prospered,  too,  as  the  world  goes. 
For,  although  Dr.  Donner  had  collected  but 
little  money,  what  was  left  of  Nancy's  had 
increased   in   his  care ;    a  stretch  of  forest 
on  the  north  of  the  hills,  that  he  had  al 
ways   owned,   had    brought   him    revenues 
which,  with  a  mica  mine  he  opened  in  con 
nection  with  others,  had  made    him  rich. 
With  the  years  his  boy  had  grown  to  man 
hood,    perhaps    not   brilliant,    but   on   the 
whole    satisfactory,  stalwart  and  sturdy,   a 
handsome    youth,   who    came    home   from 
Dartmouth  to  have  a  run  through  Europe. 
Death  had  not  knocked  at  his  door,  and  he 
had  been  able  to  keep  Camperdoun  in  a  fair 
measure  of  content  and  cheer  till  the  end 
came.     The  very  vagaries  of  his  youth  had 
deepened  his  knowledge  and   influence  and 


96  AN  INHERITANCE 

sympathy.  Now  past  his  fiftieth  year,  if 
the  serious  side  of  life  had  subdued  some  of 
the  old  gayety  of  nature,  a  tenderness  had 
grown  into  the  seldom  smile ;  and  the  bent 
head,  the  broad  shoulders,  made  one  who 
gazed  at  him  think  of  Titanic  strength  and 
intensity  of  power. 

And  while  all  this  was  accomplishing, 
and  the  people  had  grown  in  their  devotion 
to  him,  he  had  grown  through  his  devotion 
to  his  wife.  He  remembered  well  the  day 
when  driving  alone  in  the  deep  gloom  of 
overhanging  woods  he  had  climbed  the  nar 
row  green  way  and  come  out  upon  a  burst 
of  light,  and  as  if  he  had  received  some 
spiritual  revelation,  thinking  of  Nancy  he 
had  passed  to  the  worship  of  that  which 
Nancy  worshipped.  It  was  something  that 
never  left  him.  As  he  went  his  way  in  the 
starry  nights,  the  hollows  of  the  midnight 
blue  were  full  of  a  divine  presence;  going 
between  the  high  hill  pastures  where  the 
skies  stretched  long  wastes  of  lonely  light,  it 
was  with  him ;  and  he  felt  its  companion- 


AN  INHERITANCE  97 

ship  in  the  solitary  drives  from  hill  to  hill 
in  moonless  nights,  wrestling  with  wild 
snow-storms  and  whistling  winds.  And  yet 
perhaps  he  never  had  any  sweeter  and  loftier 
moment  than  when  in  the  meeting-house, 
with  the  blue  sky  shining  through  the  bare 
windows  on  the  white  walls,  and  glittering 
on  white  cloth  and  silver  tankard,  in  his 
place  as  deacon,  a  place  his  other  duties 
seldom  allowed  him  to  fill,  he  passed  the 
bread  and  wine  to  his  wife,  and  entered 
with  her  into  the  presence  of  God. 

And  this  was  the  man,  this  was  the  wom 
an,  round  about  whose  happiness  Miss  Bar 
bara  Camperdoun  encamped  with  all  her 
forces. 


IV 


"  IF  I  had  had  any  idea  it  was  like  this 
I  wouldn't  have  made  Aunt  Barbara's  life 
such  a  burden  to  her  before  we  came  up 
here,"  said  Luisa,  when  she  had  found  her 
breath  again  after  the  climbing,  still  feeling 
as  though  her  lungs  were  made  of  red-hot 
brass,  and  had  thrown  herself  upon  the  flat 
rock  of  the  summit. 

"Why,  what  did  you  think  it  was  like?  " 
said  the  young  man  standing  beside  her  and 
looking  over  the  distance. 

"  Oh — cows — and  stubbly  pastures — and 
people  who  say  '  heouw. ' ' ' 

"  You  were  not  very  wrong.  There  are 
cows  and  pastures  here.  And  there  are 
people  who  say  '  heouw. '  So  there  are  in 
Virginia,  and  in  Iowa,  and  in  Texas.  It 
seems  to  be  one  consentaneous  point  of 
national  dialect.  But  you  see  there  is  some- 


AN  INHERITANCE  99 

thing  more.  My  father  says  that  if  the  view 
of  the  promised  land  was  as  fine  as  this,  the 
prophet  ought  to  have  been  satisfied  with 
that." 

She  glanced  up  at  the  young  man  as  he 
stood  there  at  his  ease,  leaning  slightly  on 
his  long  staff,  but  no  more  fatigued  than  if 
he  had  strolled  down  a  lane,  and  gazing  off 
at  the  sea  of  hills  below  them,  a  vast  welter 
of  green  and  purple  melting  into  the  hori 
zon's  azure,  with  every  here  and  there  out 
of  cloud  or  shower  sudden  rainbows  spring 
ing,  flaming,  disappearing.  There  was 
something  in  young  John  Donner's  face 
that  held  Luisa's  glance,  notwithstanding 
the  marvel  beneath  them,  as  if  it  were  the 
light  of  a  sun  she  had  never  seen,  a  gladness 
of  gazing  where  the  very  soul  shone  through 
in  beauty. 

"What  is  it  you  see?"  she  cried.  "I 
never  see  anything  like  that  !  " 

"Why  not?"  said  he,  turning  a  little 
and  smiling  down  at  her.  "You  have 
eyes." 


ioo  AN  INHERITANCE 


;  i 


But  I  see  not,"  said  Luisa.  "What 
were  you  thinking  of  then  ?  " 

"I?     Oh,  but  that  doesn't  matter." 

"  What  were  you  thinking  of  ?  " 

"  Must  I  say?  I  was  thinking  of  a 
temptation  in  a  high  mountain,  and  wonder 
ing  if  heaven  were  so  beautiful  that  the 
kingdoms  of  the  earth  paled  before  them  ; 
such  a  kingdom  as  this  scene,  for  in 
stance." 

"And  what  else  ?  "  as  he  paused. 

"Well,  I  was  gathering  a  hint  of  the 
Lord's  city  out  of  the  golden  mists  over 
there  in  the  east,  and  thinking  that  after  all 
they  belonged  to  earth,  and  I,  too,  and  that 
if  earth  was  to  be  transfigured  into  heavenly 
likeness  I  must  do  my  share ' ' 

"  Do  you  know,  if  you  were  in  Boston  I 
should  call  you  a  prig  !  You  are  very  re 
ligious,  are  you  not  ?  ' '  said  Luisa,  still 
looking  up  at  him  gravely. 

"  As  you  are,"  he  said. 

"I  religious?"  cried  Luisa.  "Well! 
I'm  the  dancingest  girl  in  Boston  !  " 


AN'  INHERITANCE  ib< 

He  laughed.  "  Perhaps  you  might  be 
that,  and  religious,  too,"  he  said. 

"  No,  indeed  !  "  she  replied,  turning  away 
and  gathering  the  broken  pebbles  about  her. 
' '  To  be  religious  for  me  means  to  go  down 
to  North  Street  and  the  South  Cove,  you 
know,  and  over  the  other  side  of  the  hill 
generally.  No  time  for  dancing,  or  for 
anything  but  picking  up  sick  old  women 
and  dirty  babies." 

"That  is  one  way,  truly.  But  there  are 
a  great  many  paths  to  heaven,  and  travellers 
on  the  way — those  who  see  the  city  and 
hearten  others  as  they  go  ;  those  who  dream 

dreams  and  have  visions Well,  perhaps 

you  are  right,"  abandoning  himself  to  the 
confidential  moment.  "You  can't  be  con 
scious  of  the  great  joy  and  not  want  to  help 
others  up  to  its  experience." 

"Oh,  I  hate  the  whole  thing!"  she 
cried.  "It  means  death  and  dying  and 
after  death.  I  don't  want  to  think  of  it;  I 
don't  want  to  hear  about  it !  " 

He   looked   at   her    and   laughed   again. 


fC2  .AN   INHERITANCE 

"You  are  a  brand  to  be  snatched  from  the 
burning,"  he  said.  "You  can't  live  long 
in  the  same  town  with  my  mother  and  feel 
that  way." 

"But  I  like  here." 

"So  do  I." 

"And  this  life,  this  earth,  are  good 
enough  for  me. ' ' 

"  She  will  show  you  how  to  live  on  earth, 
and  in  heaven,  too." 

"  Do  you  ?  "  she  exclaimed. 

"I  am  not  as  good  as  my  mother. 
Hardly  anyone  could  be,"  he  said,  gently. 

"  Your  mother !  Oh,  what  a  horrible 
time  your  wife  will  have  !  " 

"I  don't  think  so,"  he  said.  "Al 
though,  to  be  sure,  the  lot  of  a  country  doc 
tor's  wife  is  not  cast  in  velvet  ease." 

"A  country  doctor  !  Are  you  going  to 
persist  in  that  ?  I  can't  talk  you  out  of  it  ?  " 

"Why  should  you?" 

"But  why?"  exclaimed  Luisa.  "I 
mean — that  is — I  know  it  is  no  affair  of 
mine  !  " 


AN  INHERITANCE  103 

"  I  did  have  other  views " 

"Of  course  you  did.  Why,  just  think 
what  you  could  do  at  the  bar !  And  you 

would  be  in  politics 

11  Politics  !  " 

"Yes,   indeed;    you  would  be  senator; 

you  would " 

"No.  I  wished  to  study  for  the  min 
istry." 

"  Oh !  "  and  she  struck  a  spark  of  fire 
from  two  flints  in  her  hand,  and  then  tossed 
them  away. 

"And  my  mother  wished  it,  too,"  said 
John,  unobservantly.  "But  my  father 
thought  otherwise.  He  thinks  I  am  adapt 
ed  for  his  work.  And  he  says  it  is  the  Mas 
ter's  work.  And  when  my  mother  remem 
bers  what  it  has  done  for  my  father,  she  says 
she  cannot  ask  more  for  me,  and  there  you 
have  it,"  he  added,  seating  himself  on  an 
edge  of  the  bowlder  behind  her.  "  And  so 
I  am  studying  with  him  for  the  present. 
But  I  shall  go  down  to  the  medical  school, 
as  I  told  you,  and  after  that,  perhaps  again 


104  AN  INHERITANCE 

across  the  water  for  Vienna,  and  to  walk  the 
Dublin  Hospital " 

' '  To  come  back  and  practise  up  here 
among  the  hills  !  But  to  be  sure.  What 
am  I  thinking  of?"  opening  her  eyes. 
"  You  will  be  a  great  city  physician.  You 
will  be  the  fashion.  You  will  have  an  in 
come  of  forty  thousand  a  year  !  ' ' 

"  There  is  quite  as  much  to  do  here 
among  the  hills." 

"  You  don't  mean  to  say  you  would  really 
settle  here?  To  take  care  of  boors  and 
bumpkins  ?  To  waste  yourself  on  clods  ?  ' ' 

"  There  is  no  such  thing  as  waste,  you 
know — see  that  rainbow  !  And  as  for  that, 
my  father  is  a  country  doctor. ' ' 

"  I  should  think  it  was  enough,  then,  to 
have  one  such  power  thrown  away. ' ' 

"We  don't  look  at  it  so.  There  are 
bodies  and  souls  of  value  here.  My  father 
thought  it  worth  while,  when  Mr.  Morris 
died,  to  bring  here  a  preacher  of  as  rare 
gifts  as  there  was  to  be  had " 

"Yes,  I  know.     Mary  told  me  herself. 


AN  INHERITANCE  105 

And  he  pays  him  out  of  his  own  pocket  a 
big  salary.  She  told  me  not  to  speak  of  it. 
But  then,  of  course,  you  knew." 

"  No,  I  didn't.     And,  excuse  me " 

"I  should  have  minded  Mary,  and  my 
own  business,"  said  Luisa,  laughing.  "  I 
was  never  taken  up  so  shortly  and  so  fre 
quently  in  my  life.  There  is  something  in 
the  atmosphere  of  these  hills  very  condu 
cive  to  frankness." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon." 

"  No,  indeed.  But  you  see  my  excuse  is 
that  you  are  all  so  different  here,  and  you 
interest  me." 

"  Thanks,"  said  the  young  man. 

"And  now  you  are  offended.  But  you 
are — like  the  people  in  a  book.  Mary  is  so 
white  and  fair  and  Blessed  Damozel  seem 
ing.  St.  Paul  or  St.  John,  or  some  of 
them,  Luke,  perhaps,  would  have  looked 
exactly  like  the  doctor.  And  as  for  your 
mother  —  those  old  Hebrews  and  Arabs 
didn't  think  much  of  women,  did  they  !  or 
there  would  have  been  a  seraph  of  their 


106  AN  INHERITANCE 

naming  to  compare  your  mother  with  !  Oh 
— and,  of  course,"  she  cried,  "I've  made 
another  blunder  now  !  You  call  it  playing 
with  sacred  things." 

"  If  you  say  nothing  worse  than  that," 
said  he,  "I  fancy  you  will  be  forgiven." 
And  the  smile  that  played  round  his  lips 
and  kindled  the  rather  severe  outlines,  as  he 
looked  down  at  her,  who  gazed  up  at  him 
with  the  light  sparkling  in  her  gypsy-like 
eyes,  and  the  color  glowing  in  her  velvet 
cheek,  was  all  that  was  needed  to  send  the 
dimples  dancing  over  Luisa's  face  again. 

"  Well,"  she  said,  "  when  I  see  you  gal 
loping  by  as  if  you  had  a  lariat  coiled  on 
the  saddle-bow,  I  must  say  you  don't  look 
as  if  the  future  of  a  country  parson  or  a 
country  doctor  was  the  one  you  had  chosen 
for  yourself !  ' ' 

"  I  really  don't  know  why  either  of  those 
people  should  not  ride  a  good  horse. ' ' 

"All  the  same,  I  believe.  I  shall  go  into 
Tucson,  or  another  such  spot,  some  day  yet, 
and  see  you  with  a  cowboy's  hat  and  car- 


AN   INHERITANCE  107 

tridge-belt,  speaking  with  your  gun  for  all 
it's  worth." 

"  May  your  prophetic  powers  increase." 
"I  suppose  you  mean  to  say  they  never 
can  be  less.  Well,  Mary  ought  to  be  tired 
holding  the  horses,"  she  said.  "And  I'm 
sure  I'm  tired.  Hills  are  all  very  well  to 
look  at.  But  I  never  could  live  on  scenery. 
I  want  people,  too,  and  all  the  touch  and 
go  of  life.  I  can't  have  the  go  without  the 
touch.  And  yet,  who  knows?"  she  said. 
"  I  think  if  I  lived  long  among  such  people 
as  you  are  here,  I  might  be — in  time — just 
a  fraction  as  good.  What  they  call  not  half 
bad,  you  know."  And  she  lifted  her  hand 
for  him  to  help  her  up  and  forfend  her  in 
the  scramble  down  to  the  hollow,  where 
Mary  had  waited  with  the  horses. 

"Oh,  I  rode  all  one  fall  with  the  Myo 
pias,"  said  Luisa,  as  they  mounted  and 
went  on,  "  but  it  was  nothing  like  this  !  I 
feel  every  instant  as  if  I  were  going  to  slip 
over  the  edge  of  the  earth.  Mary,  what 
possesses  you  to  sit  up  in  your  saddle  that 


Io8  AN  INHERITANCE 

way?  You  ride  like  one  of  the  Wild 
Ladies  !  "  And  John  had  to  dismount  and 
give  Mary  his  bridle-rein,  and  lead  Luisa's 
horse  himself,  to  the  accompaniment  of 
shrieks  and  laughter  and  blushes  and  great 
gayety.  And  it  was  early  dusk  when  they 
reached  the  village  and  found  Miss  Barbara 
at  the  Camperdoun  gate  with  old  Martha, 
just  properly  disquieted  and  no  more. 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Miss  Barbara,  with  sus 
picious  sweetness,  "  I  felt  you  must  be  per 
fectly  safe  with  Mr.  John.  He  knows  every 
cleft  of  the  hills,  Martha  says.  Thanks  ! 
Thanks!"  to  the  young  man.  "Good 
night  !  Good -night !  "  and  she  turned  with 
her  charge. 

"Well,  I  hope,  Luisa,"  she  added,  after 
the  door  was  closed,  "  you  are  not  going  to 
treat  this  one  as  you  have  treated  all  the 
young  men  at  home — let  him  get  interested 
in  you  and  then  drop  him " 

"Into  nether  blackness,"  said  the  girl. 
"Aunt  Barbara,  I  should  think  you  consid 
ered  me  a  perfectly  hopeless  flirt." 


AN  INHERITANCE  109 

"  I  do,"  said  Miss  Barbara. 
They  went  in  and  sat  in  the  old  parlor, 
just  where  the  light  of  the  hall  lamp  fell  on 
the  portrait  of  the  girl  that  Luisa  used  to 
say  would  drive  her  wild  if  she  met  her  in 
the  dark. 

"If  these  people  weren't  crazy,"  she 
said,  expecting  some  expostulation,  and 
thinking  to  ward  it  off,  "they  got  them 
selves  up  for  the  part.  They'll  drive  me 
crazy  some  dark  night  yet.  Aunt  Barbara, 
we  must  put  some  netting  over  them,  and 
have  it  thick " 

"  When  I  came  up  here,"  said  Miss  Bar 
bara,  paying  no  attention  to  the  new  issue, 
"  it  was  to  arrange  a  matter  of  property. 
And  I  brought  you  along  to  be  rid  of  love- 
making,  not  to  plunge  into  more.  And  as 
for  this  young  man,  Luisa,  he  is  the  only 
child  of  his  father  and  mother,  and  I  can't 
have  you  playing  with  him." 

"I  am  not  playing  with  him,"  said 
Luisa. 

"I  don't  dispute  that  he   is,  all    things 


no  AN  INHERITANCE 

considered,  eligible.  Yes,  eligible,  and  pre 
sentable — an  only  son,  idolized.  Dr.  Don- 
ner,  I  understand,  is  a  very  wealthy  man 
now,  and  with  a  large  income  besides  from 
mica  mines  and  wood-lots  and  what  not. 
And  money  grows — there's  no  doubt  of 
that.  And  if  you  are  in  earnest  about 
young  John  Donner,"  said  Miss  Barbara 
slowly,  "and  if  he  chooses  to  come  down 
and  settle  in  town,  we  could  soon  fetch  him 
a  practice.  He  has  seen  the  world  ;  is  col 
lege-bred  ;  is  serious — it  would  give  you 
stability;  yes,  indeed,  I  think  well  of  it." 

"Aunt  Barbara!"  shrieked  Luisa,  from 
the  lounge,  "what  in  the  world  are  you 
talking  about  ?  You  are  all  out.  You  are 
just  as  much  mistaken  as  if  you  had  torn 
your  gown.  My  goodness  !  what  do  I  want 
of  him  ?  He  is  dead  in  love  with  Mary." 

"So  was  Romeo  with  Rosaline.  It  was 
before  he  had  seen  you.  '  When  I  said  I 
would  die  a  bachelor  I  did  not  think  I 
should  live  till  I  were  married,'  said  Bene 
dick.  He  isn't  dead  in  love  with  Mary 


AN  INHERITANCE  in 

now."  And  at  that  Luisa  caught  up  her 
hat  in  a  fine  temper  and  rushed  to  her  room 
and  locked  the  door,  and  flung  herself  on 
her  bed  in  a  passion  of  tears. 

"Oh!"  she  sobbed,  "I  don't  care  a 
scrap  !  And  I  know  he  doesn't  care  a  scrap. 
He  is  in  love  with  Mary  ;  he  ought  to  be, 
I  want  him  to  be  !  Oh,  to  think  I've  only 
been  here  six  weeks,  and  am  in  all  this 
trouble  !  Oh,  what  was  I  born  for  ?  I  will 
go  home  ;  I  will  go  right  home ;  the  house 
is  there  whether  the  family  is  or  not. 
And  oh,  I  don't  know  !  I  don't  know — 
how  I — can — go  away  !  ' '  And  then  she 
pulled  the  other  pillow  over  her  head  in  a 
whirl  of  pride  and  shame — the  handsome, 
haughty  Luisa,  who  had  been  so  long  in  the 
habit  of  breaking  hearts  with  her  black  eyes 
and  her  damask  cheeks  and  her  bewildering 
smiles  and  her  silver  voice,  that  she  never 
knew  she  had  a  heart  of  her  own  to  break  ! 

And  while  Luisa  was  crying  in  her  pillow, 
and  rising  and  walking  the  floor,  and  bath 
ing  her  eyes,  and  beginning  to  cry  again, 


112  AN  INHERITANCE 

Mary  leaned  over  the  gate  with  John  and 
watched  the  moon  float  up  full  over  the 
crest  of  Benbow,  and  John  watched  its  sil 
ver  glorying  of  her  face  and  her  fair  hair 
and  her  great  night-blue  eyes. 

"I  am  so  sorry,"  she  was  saying,  "  that 
I  was  born  anywhere  but  here.  I  love  it 
all  so.  I  should  like  to  feel  I  was  its  very 
own." 

"You  would  not  advise  me,  then,  to  go 
down  and  open  my  practice  in  the  city?" 
he  asked  after  a  moment. 

"I?  Oh,  John,  never!  To  be  sure," 
she  added,  with  rather  a  regretful  intona 
tion,  "  you  might  become  more  famous 
there  ;  have  more  opportunity ' ' 

"There  is  all  the  opportunity  in  the 
world  here,"  he  said,  quickly.  "And  I 
must  be  with  my  father." 

She  turned  in  a  little  surprise,  as  if  she 
saw  he  had  been  weighing  a  point  about 
which  there  was  no  question.  The  minister, 
who  had  no  more  wisdom,  despite  his  gifts, 
than  to  step  down  just  then  and  join  them, 


AN  INHERITANCE  113 

thought  he  had  never  seen  anything  so 
beautiful  as  his  daughter  standing  there  in 
the  moonlight  like  a  statue  that  has  just 
melted  into  a  woman.  Perhaps  John 
thought  so,  too.  But  as  he  gazed,  a  thin 
cloud  drifted  across  the  moon,  and  in  the 
place  of  that  innocent  white  still  beauty 
swam  a  little  dark  face,  all  blush  and  smile 
and  sparkle,  glancing,  laughing,  flashing, 
living,  and  dazzled  and  dimmed  his  eyes. 

But  old  Martha  was,  on  the  whole,  some 
thing  wiser  than  the  minister.  She  had 
seen  John  dashing  off  the  next  morning,  in 
his  saddle,  for  a  long  ride  up  and  down  hill. 
"  Ye  needn't  go  horseback  riding,"  she 
muttered  to  herself,  although  apparently 
addressing  him  as  he  galloped  by,  "  to  work 
it  off.  It's  only  time  cools  hot  blood — an' 
ye  come  rightly  by  it !  But  ye' re  yer 
mother's  son,  ez  well  ez  his'n,  an'  ye've  got 
the  stuff  in  ye  ter  overcome  ten'tation. 
Ye've  got  princerple,  John  Donner !  An' 
ef  this  little  minx  o'  ourn  ain't  tew  much  fer 
ye,  ye' 11  clap  it  right  on  now  !  " 


H4  AN  INHERITANCE 

Apparently  John  had  no  sympathetic  way 
of  taking  the  unheard  advice  to  heart,  for  he 
came  up  the  yard  the  evening  of  that  day, 
scattering  with  his  stick  the  petals  of  the 
poppies  by  the  path. 

But  before  he  could  drop  the  knocker, 
Martha,  who  had  been  on  the  watch,  came 
out  and  closed  the  door  behind  her. 

"  She's  ben  to  bed  all  day  'ith  the  head 
ache,  an'  you  can't  see  her,"  she  said.  "  An' 
ez  for  you,  John  Donner,  you  jes'  put  me  in 
min'  of  a  fly  't  can't  keep  away  frum  the 
honey,  pizon  in  it  or  not !  I've  hearn  tell 
of  men  't  was  in  love  'ith  two  women  ter 
oncet,  but  I  didn'  expec'  ter  see  'em  in  a 
Christian  Ian'.  Now,  you  better  go  home 
tell  ye  know  yer  own  mind.  What !  Oh, 
ye  ain't  no  need  to  look  glowering  to  me  ! 
I  ain't  a  gal,  an'  I  don't  mind  yer  looks  the 
leastestest  mite.  Ye'd  be  ez  harnsome  as 
the  Archangel  Gabriel — as  ye  be — an'  I 
shouldn't  see  it,  an'  ye  can  stan*  up  as  big 
an'  forbiddin'  as  Mount  Pisgeh,  an'  I 
shouldn't  be  afraid  of  ye.  I  should  only  see 


AN  INHERITANCE  115 

the  little  boy  thet  uster  run  acrosst  the  green 
ter  old  Marthy  fer  her  hot  gingerbread. 
Wai',  I'm  takin'  better  care  o'  my  hot 
gingerbread  now " 

"What  in  the  world  are  you  talking 
about,  Aunt  Martha  ? ' '  said  the  young 
man,  impatiently,  looking  up  at  the  house. 

But  Martha  took  a  step  nearer,  and  laid 
her  old  seamy  hand  on  his  arm.  "  Now, 
John,"  said  she.  "  I  give  ye  the  fust  kiss  ye 
ever  hed — yes,  I  did  !  I  was  yer  mother's 
nuss.  Mr.  Camperdoun,  he  lent  me — an' 
I'd  'a'  gone  ef  he  hedn't.  An'  I've  ben 
fond  o'  ye  sence  ye  were  so  high.  An'  I've 
watched  out  on  ye,  an'  prayed  for  ye,  an' 
ben  proud  of  ye. ' ' 

"  Yes,  Aunt  Martha,  I  know  it,"  said  the 
young  man.  "  And  I  recognize  and  return 
all  your  friendship.  I  don't  know  just  what 
you  are  driving  at  now." 

"  Yes,  ye  do.  I  ain't  ben  all  the  same's 
own  folks  to  ye  all  yer  life  fer  nothin',  an' 
ye  know  me  well  enough  ter  know  w'at  I 
mean.  'Cause  I'm  fond  o'  you  ain't  the 


n6  AN  INHERITANCE 

reason  I'm  willin'  ter  see  ye  go  straight  ter 
destruction." 

"Well,  look  here,"  said  the  young  man, 
laughing  now,  "  if  this  is  all  you  have  to 
say ' ' 

"  'Tisn't.  An'  you  needn't  laugh.  On- 
less  you  want  ter  laugh  t'other  side  yer 
mouth.  'Tain't  no  laughin'  matter.  Fond 
ez  I  be  of  you,  John  Donner,  I've  ben  jes' 
ez  fond  o'  Mary  Swann,  ever  sence  she 
lighted  in  this  town  like  a  little  white  bird. 
It  seemed  ez  ef  she  was  too  good  ter  stay, 
an'  I  vum  I  do' no'  but  she  be  !  She's  a 
sight  too  good  fer  ye,  anyway,  playin'  fast 
an'  loose  ez  ye  be.  Now,  maybe,"  said 
Martha,  with  half  a  wheedling  emphasis 
"  you  ain't  jes'  so's  ter  say  engaged  to 
Mary,  but  ye  know  ye  ain't  eyther  of  ye 
expected  ter  marry  anybody  else.  Ye  know 
she's  cut  out  for  ye,  an'  there  ain't  nobody 
else  in  this  breathin'  world  that's  fit  ter 
be  yer  blessed  mother's  darter,  an'  'twould 
nigh  about  break  her  heart  to  hev  Mary's 
heart  broke." 


AN  INHERITANCE  117 

"  Come,   come,  Aunt   Martha,"  said  the 
young  man,  "  you  will  have  to  let  me  pass." 

"  Wen  I'm  ready.  I  ain't  said  my  say 
yet.  I'm  yer  mother's  an'  yer  father's 
friend.  I  knowed  'em  afore  ye  did.  An' 
that's  one  side  of  it.  The  other  is,"  and 
Martha's  little  pale  eyes  flashed  at  him, 
"  I've  been  hired  help  in  the  Camperdoun 
fambly  this  thirty  year  come  nex'  month. 
Their  fortins  hes  ben  mine.  I've  ben  true 
to  'em,  an'  I  mean  ter  be.  Where  the 
Camperdouns  is  consarned,  I'm  a  Camper 
doun,"  and  there  Martha  choked  a  little, 
but  not  at  all  with  any  fear  of  the  disdain 
of  the  landed  gentry  among  whom  she  had 
taken  her  place,  and  reached  up  and  pulled 
the  comb  out  of  her  hair  and  gave  the  gray 
wisp  a  stronger  twist,  as  if  the  tension 
tightened  her  control  over  her  feelings. 
"An'  so  ye  see,"  she  began  again,  after 
thrusting  in  the  comb  more  firmly,  "  I  can't 
hev  no  playin'  'ith  this  here  little  minx. 
She  may  be  a  poppet,"  said  Martha,  "  but 
she's  a  Camperdoun.  An'  she's  a  dear, 


n8  AN  INHERITANCE 

pooty,  coaxin'  little  cat,  an'  I'm  fond  o' 
her,  tew.  An'  that's  all  they  is  about  it. 
An'  I  tell  ye,  ef  ye  don't  let  her  alone,  John 
Donner,  I'll  go  toyer  father.  An'  then  we'll 
see.  Hev  ye  forgot,"  she  exclaimed,  her 
voice  rising,  "  that  she's  got  w'at  yer  father 
calls  the  Camperdoun  inheritance,  jes'  ez 
much  ez  the  worst  of  'em  ?  Don't  ye  know 
this  girl's  got  the  thing  in  her  blood,  jest 
ez  strong  ez  Launce  Camperdoun  hed,  ef 
there's  anythin'  wakes  the  sleepin'  beast? 
Ef  that  there  Miss  Barb'ry's  name  warn't 
Camperdoun  I  wouldn't  hev  one  mite  o' 
respec'  for  her,"  cried  the  old  woman,  with 
fervid  inconsequence.  "  Fer  ef  I  know 
black  an'  w'ite  w'en  I  see  it,  it  was  her  give 
him  his  death  notice  w'en  she  sent  him 
word  they  was  cousins,  and  't warn't  no  use 
doublin'  crazy  blood,  or  words  to  that  ef- 
fec'.  I  come  an'  nussed  him  through  brain- 
fever,  an'  arter  that  he  jes'  wilted  down.  I 
s'pose  she  done  right,  though.  In  the  end, 
that  is.  But  she'd  orter  thought  o'  thet  in 
the  uptake.  An'  ye  see  that  ye  do  right, 


AN  INHERITANCE  119 

John  Dormer  !  I  won't  hev  this  Loizy  o* 
ourn  tampered  with.  Let  sleepin'  dogs  lie. 
She'll  do  well  enough  ef  thar  don't  nothin' 
pertic'lar  come  acrost  her  hawse,  ez  they  say. 
But  she  sha'n't  be  upset  by  a  feller  thinkin' 
he's  in  love  with  her  w'en  he  knows  in  his 
soul  he's  agoin'  ter  marry  another  gal." 

A  blind  slammed  open  on  the  second 
floor,  a  head  where  the  sunset  glinted  in 
points  of  light  on  every  dark  ring  of  hair 
was  thrust  through  the  open  window,  a 
laughing  face  looked  down  at  him.  "  I've 
had  a  headache,"  said  Luisa.  "I'm  all 
right  now.  Stay  a  moment.  I'll  be  down 
directly." 

Mary  waited,  leaning  on  the  garden-gate 
alone  that  night,  and  went  in  when  the  nine- 
o'clock  bell  rung,  with  a  sort  of  chill  at  her 
heart  that  she  had  never  felt  before.  She 
didn't  know  why  it  was  that,  as  she  copied 
out  her  father's  sermon  for  him  the  next 
day,  she  listened  for  a  sound  the  morning 
long  with  a  painful  eagerness  ;  the  sound  of 
a  familiar  foot  on  the  gravel  that  did  not 


120  AN  INHERITANCE 

come ;  and  that  when  she  put  the  little  chil 
dren  to  bed  for  her  mother,  and  sat  singing 
to  them  in  the  twilight,  the  beating  of  her 
heart  made  her  voice  tremble  so  that  the 
boy  reached  from  his  bed  and  put  an  arm 
about  her  neck  and  whispered,  "  Buvver 
loves  Mawy." 

Buvver  was  ill  next  day,  and  when  Luisa 
ran  down  for  Mary  to  join  them  on  a  tramp 
up  the  Weathergauge,  Buvver  would  not 
hear  of  Mary's  leaving  him  ;  and,  of  course, 
Mary  would  not  cross  the  sick  child's  whim, 
and  she  stayed  at  home,  but  with  the  heart 
going  out  of  her  and  up  the  mountain-side 
where  the  party  scrambled.  She  contented 
herself  as  she  could  by  thinking  of  the  high 
pasture  where  she  and  John  had  sat  while 
the  sun  revealed  the  mysteries  in  the  front 
of  old  Blue  opposite,  the  long  descending 
slope  between  peopled  with  the  wild  horses 
of  the  doctor's  upper  farm,  and  Blue  Moun 
tain  rising  with  layers  and  lines  of  pine 
forest,  into  which  presently  wound  veils  of 
smoke,  while  the  forest  as  it  climbed  became 


AN  INHERITANCE  121 

deep  violet  glooms  suddenly  smitten  and 
parted  by  rifts  of  sunshine,  disclosing,  still 
above,  bare,  scarred  precipice  and  leaping 
torrent  and  misty  caverns ;  and  the  heights 
beyond,  swathed  in  deep,  impenetrable 
azure,  seemed,  she  had  said  to  John,  to  be 
both  the  throne  and  the  high  altar  of  Power. 
She  wondered  if  John  would  not  remember 
her  there.  And  as  she  sat  beside  the  bed 
where  Buvver  was  now  asleep  she  was 
ashamed  of  herself  that  her  breath  went  and 
came  so  eagerly  ;  that  she  found  it  so  hard 
to  sit  still ;  that  the  unreasonable  tears 
would  start  and  drop  upon  her  work. 

Perhaps  John  would  have  remembered 
her  there,  if  he  had  gone  there— for  the  un 
spoken  words  that  had  trembled  on  his  lips 
as  they  had  rested  there  were  like  those 
strains  that  "  pipe  to  the  spirit  ditties  of  no 
tone,"  and  they  had  both  known  what  the 
presence  of  others  hindered  from  further 
expression.  But  to-day  the  party  wound 
round  the  Weathergauge  by  another  path ; 
and  after  luncheon  he  had  been  sitting  with 


122  AN  INHERITANCE 

Luisa,  a  little  apart  from  the  rest,  looking 
at  quite  a  different  view — the  view  of  a 
rosy  face  where  dimple  chased  dimple, 
where  white  eyelids  drooped  their  dark 
lashes  over  dark  eyes  and  lifted  them  with 
flashes  of  laughing  light,  and  little  teeth 
glittered,  and  the  corners  of  a  pretty  mouth 
curved  bewilderingly  ;  the  face  of  a  woman 
like  those  he  had  read  of,  a  woman  of  the 
great  outer  world  with  its  dash  and  life  and 
sparkle,  such  as  he  had  seen  but  not  ap 
proached  in  Paris  perhaps ;  a  woman  fit  for 
the  life  of  courts,  and  smiling  now  on  him. 
And  they  had  risen  and  strolled  away,  fol 
lowing  a  track  John  knew,  now  under 
arches  of  green  boughs  where  he  had  to 
clear  the  tangle;  now  pausing  to  look  at 
the  world  through  open  spaces  while  they 
discussed  their  young  experiences  and  opin 
ions  ;  now  resting  before  starting  to  go 
down  and  find  the  others ;  and  at  last 
wrapped  in  a  cloud  that  came  up  about 
them  and  played  its  lightnings  to  and  fro 
under  their  feet. 


AN  INHERITANCE  123 

11  I  think  we  will  climb  a  little  higher 
and  get  out  of  these  mists,"  said  John. 
"  And  if  we  keep  to  the  left  there's  a  path 
down.  I  have  heard  my  mother  say  that 
when  it  is  dark  where  we  are  it  is  best  to 
climb  higher  and  into  the  light." 

1 '  That  is  one  of  the  good  things,"  said 
Luisa,  with  a  little  sigh.  "  It  isn't  my  way. 
I  should  just  shut  my  eyes  and  fight  on." 

"There  isn't  much  fighting  here,"  said 
John. 

"  No  ;  only  marching  and  countermarch 
ing.  And  I  have  my  marching  orders.  I 
shall  be  going  home  so  soon  now,"  she 
said,  with  another  little  sigh. 

"Going  home!"  And  he  stood  still 
with  sudden  consternation. 

"  Yes.  They  are  all  settled  on  the  Shore 
by  this." 

"  I  thought— I  hoped " 

"Oh,  Aunt  Barbara  is  going  to  stay," 
said  Luisa,  demurely. 

"  What  in  the  name  of  wonder " 

"Do   you   care   whether   Aunt    Barbara 


124  AN  INHERITANCE 

stays  or  not,  I  suppose  you  want  to  say. 
Well,  she  will  have  the  place  ready  for  the 
family  by  another  season." 

"  Another  season.  It  might  as  well  be 
another  life." 

"  Exactly,"  said  Luisa.  And  then  she 
stopped  and  looked  behind  her.  "  I 
thought  the  others  would  be  somewhere 
here,"  she  said.  "  Oughtn't  we  to  go  back? 
Sha'n't  we  lose  them?" 

"  What  do  we  want  of  the  others?  "  he 
asked,  roughly. 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

"You  said  there  were  no  bears  in  these 
woods,"  she  said,  with  a  side  glance. 

He  laughed  then.  "You  make  no  al 
lowances,"  he  began. 

"What  nonsense!"  interrupted  Miss 
Luisa. 

"  To  be  sure,  it  is  impossible  for  you  to 
see,  to  know — I  don't  imagine  a  rose  blow 
ing  all  alone  would  have  any  idea  of  what 
the  world  would  be  without  it." 

"I'm  sure  I  don't  know  how  roses  feel. 


AN  INHERITANCE  125 

I   hardly   think  science   has   gone   so   far. 
Though  I  always  did  believe  flowers  felt  it 
when  you  picked  them.     But  just   now," 
she   exclaimed,   coming   to   a  halt,    "have 
you    really  any  idea  where   we   are?      It 
doesn't   seem   to   me   that    this   is   even   a 
bridle-path.       Chaperones    do    have    their 
uses,  don't  they  ?     If  there  were  such  things 
at   Woodsedge,    we — could   have   lost   our 
selves  on  Weathergauge  just  the  same." 
John  started  and  looked  about  him. 
"I  thought  I  knew  every  twig   on  the 
Weathergauge,"    he    replied.       "  We— we 
really  must  wait  where  we  are  till  the  sky 
lifts."     And   he  began  to  break  off  some 
hemlock  boughs  for  her  to  sit  upon. 

As  she  waited,  watching  his  movements, 
something  of  her  thought  concerning  his 
splendid  young  stature  and  strength  shot  so 
swiftly  into  her  face  that  he  cast  down  his 
eyes. 

"Yes,"  he  exclaimed,  suddenly,  "the 
first  man  might  have  been  breaking  boughs 
for  the  first  woman,  as  I  am  doing " 


126  AN  INHERITANCE 

"But  she  wouldn't  have  worn  a  bicycle 
suit  from  Ballard's,"  said  Luisa.  "Why 
are  you  cutting  so  many  boughs  ?  ' ' 

"It  may  come  up  cold,"  looking  away 
after  a  quick  glance.  "I  may  have  to 
cover  you,  while  I  go  up  on  the  ledge  and 
build  a  fire  to  tell  them  where  we  are." 

"You  don't  mean  to  say — how  roman 
tic  !  How  Penny  Gower  would  enjoy  this  ! 
Are  we  really  lost  ?  ' ' 

"  Not  exactly,"  he  said,  piling  the  plumy 
boughs.  "  There,"  he  continued,  seating 
her  on  the  soft,  fragrant  heap,  and  throwing 
himself  down  beside  her.  "When  the  sun 
sets  I  think  it  will  open  the  clouds  below, 
and  we  shall  see  our  way.  There  is  nothing 
to  be  afraid  of.  I  have  an  idea,"  he  said, 
"  that  we  have  wound  round  the  mountain, 
and  that  the  shaking  heath  is  some  hundreds 
of  feet  below  us.  That  shaking  heath  is 
like  a  piece  of  the  Debatable  Land.  The 
common  people  used  to  declare  it  was  pos 
sessed  by  spirits,  for  it  is  ubiquitous ;  a 
piece  of  it  comes  almost  into  town,  and  it 


AN  INHERITANCE  127 

encircles  the  base  of  Weathergauge  ten 
miles  away,  except  for  the  causeway  by 
which  we  crossed.  I  suppose  Weather- 
gauge  was  some  old  volcano,  rising  from 
the  lake  once." 

"  Adam  and  Eve  and  the  beginning  of 
the  world,"  said  Luisa.  "Quite  genea 
logical." 

It  grew  dusky,  and  the  wind,  sweeping  by, 
freshened. 

"Do  you  know,"  she  said  at  last,  look 
ing  up  gravely,  "if  we  only  were  lost,  and 
were  never  to  be  found,  and  it  were  the 

real  end  of  all  things  here  for  us ' ' 

She  stopped,  her  voice  trembling.  He 
took  her  hand  and  kept  it ;  it  fluttered  a 
moment  like  a  bird,  and  then  lay  still  in 
his.  She  was  so  near  that  her  breath 
fanned  warm  on  his  cheek. 

"There  is  no  such  fortune,"  he  said, 
"good  or  bad.  And  I — had  rather  live 
with  you,  than  die  with  you!  "  And  the 
next  moment  his  arms  were  about  her  and 
he  had  kissed  her  on  the  mouth. 


128  AN  INHERITANCE 

They  neither  of  them  spoke  for  a  long 
while.  The  moment  was  enough ;  alone, 
above  the  world,  in  each  other's  arms  ! 
They  had  no  idea  if  it  were  a  moment  or 
an  hour  that  they  lingered,  with  murmurs, 
with  caresses,  with  simple  silence  of  rapture. 
There  is  nothing  by  which  to  measure  time 
in  Paradise.  And  then  it  began  to  grow 
light  about  them,  and  out  of  a  great  golden 
glamour  the  friendly  face  of  the  moon 
looked  through. 

"Oh!  "  cried  Luisa,  "that  is  the  end. 
There  is  the  light  and  the  world  and  life 
again  !  " 

"  This  is  life/'  said  John.  "  And  there 
is  the  heath,  as  I  thought.  Now  our  way  is 
clear  and  safe.  My  mother  told  me  the 
happiest  night  of  her  life  was  on  the  edge  of 
that  heath,  where  once  she  was  lost  and  had 
abandoned  herself  to  the  love  and  care  of 
heaven,  and  my  father  came  and  found  her 
and  snatched  her  back  to  the  love  here. 
And  here,  just  above,  Luisa,  has  been  and 
is  the  happiest  night  of  my  life,  too." 


AN  INHERITANCE  129 

And  for  answer,  Luisa  burst  into  tears, 
sobbing  vehemently,  uncontrollably. 

"What  is  it?  Oh,  what  is  it?"  cried 
John. 

"Nothing,  nothing!"  she  sobbed. 
"  Only  I  have  been  so  happy,  and  life  is  so 
short,  and  things — things  are  so  cruel.  Oh, 
how  could  Paolo  and  Francesca  have  been 
in  hell  when  they  were  together  !  ' '  And 
he  held  her,  and  she  clung  to  him,  till  the 
tears  stopped,  and  hand  in  hand,  with 
whispered  words  of  endearment,  as  if  they 
feared  the  very  trees  should  hear,  they  took 
their  way  down. 

It  was  that  forenoon  that  Mrs.  Donner 
had  come  across  the  green  to  Mary. 

"Buvver  is  better,"  she  said.  "Noth 
ing  really  ailed  him,  the  doctor  says.  He 
does  not  need  you,  indeed,  dear  soul,  and  I 
do.  Your  mother  is  willing,  Maida  is  pack 
ing  your  trunk,  and  we  are  going  on  a  little 
journey  together,  you  and  I.  The  doctor 
thinks  the  salt  air  will  be  good  for  both  of 
us.  And  he  can't  go;  and  I  can't  go 


130  AN  INHERITANCE 

alone,  and  you  haven't  seen  the  sea  for 
years,  Mary.  John  will  come  and  bring  us 
home,  I  hope.  And  there  isn't  a  half  hour 
to  spare." 

An  hour  before  that  the  doctor  had  said 
to  his  wife,  as  he  saw  the  young  people  go 
ing  by  the  gate  with  their  baskets,  and  tak 
ing  the  Weathergauge  lane,  "  I  suppose 
you  haven't  noticed  Master  John's  fancy  for 
the  little  Camperdoun  puss?  " 

"Yes,  I  have,"  she  said,  somewhat  de 
jectedly.  "  I  am  afraid  I  have.  And  I  had 
so  wished  for  something  else,  you  know." 

"  You  will  have  something  else,"  he  said, 
smiling  at"  her,  as  she  sat  folding  and  un 
folding  the  white  Liberty  scarf  round  her 
shoulders.  "  It  is  only  a  fancy,  an  infatua 
tion,  if  I  know  the  signs.  It  will  pass  pres 
ently,  like  any  phase  of  the  moon.  Yes,  I 
have  seen  and  heard  too  much  of  the  Cam 
perdoun  taint  to  have  my  son's  life  ruined 
by  it.  While  he  is  waiting  for  my  consent 
he  will  outgrow  it.  This  part  of  him  is  my 
son,"  he  said,  still  looking  at  her  and  won- 


AN  INHERITANCE  131 

dering,  without  knowing  that  he  did  so, 
what  further  loveliness  heaven  could  add 
to  her.  "  But  if  history  repeats  itself  it  is 
on  the  upward  spiral  here.  And  I  haven't 
any  fear  for  your  son,  my  wife.  He  will 
come  out  all  right." 

"It  troubles  me  to  think,"  she  said, 
"  that  he  will  make  me  his  confidante  when 
he  is  ready.  And  it  will  be  the  first  time 
he  has  not  had  my  sympathy. ' ' 

"Then  he  shall  not  make  you  his  confi 
dante.  It  will  be  best  for  him  not  to  do  so. 
To  confide  a  thing  is  to  cement  it,  in  a  way. 
You  shall  go  off  somewhere.  I  suppose  I 
can  live  while  you  are  gone.  To  come 
home  at  night  and  not  find  you — it  is  a 
sacrifice.  Nancy,  I  never  dreamed  youth 
would  last  so  long.  What  is  the  rhyme  the 
children  were  saying,  '  Monday's  child  is 
fair  in  the  face,  Tuesday's  child  is  full  of 
grace,' — you  must  have  been  born  between 
the  two,  for  you  are  as  fair  to  me  to 
day " 

"There,  there,"   she   3aid,  smiling,   and 


132  AN  INHERITANCE 

taking  his  knotty  hand  and  passing  it 
across  her  lips.  "I  was  never  fair,  you 
know." 

"The  years  have  moulded  your  soul  into 
your  face  !  "  he  said.  "Yes,  I  know  how 
it  will  be ;  the  moment  you  are  gone  I  shall 
begin  to  quake  lest  it  is  a  delusion  that  you 
care  for  your  old  man  still." 

"One  would  think  it  was  a  superior  be 
ing.  I  am  only  your  old  wife." 

"  There  is  no  wife  so  beautiful  as  an  old 
wife." 

"  I  hope  John  will  think  so  when  his  time 
comes,"  as  she  laid  her  cheek  upon  the  hand 
she  still  held. 

"  Ah  !  John,  yes — well,"  he  paused  a  mo 
ment.  "  What  do  you  say  to  the  Shoals?  " 
he  asked  then. 

"It  seems  like  running  away  in  the  face 
of  danger. ' ' 

"  It  is  best  for  John.  I  might  be  able  to 
run  down  by  and  by.  And  I  think  a  little 
toning  up  with  the  open  sea  will  do  you  no 
harm." 


AN  INHERITANCE  133 

"I  will  take  Mary  with  me,"  said  Mrs. 
Dormer. 

And  so  it  happened,  as  John  wound  down 
the  mountains,  threading  the  narrow  green 
wood  ways,  lifting  the  rain  -  drenched 
branches,  scaring  the  wild  bird  from  her 
nest,  climbing  round  bowlders,  and  coming 
out  of  the  shadow  down  the  long  wet  past 
ures  into  the  glory  of  the  moonlight,  his  feet 
upon  the  earth,  his  head  in  a  cloud  of  joy, 
that  his  mother  and  Mary  were  speeding 
away  in  a  sleeping-car,  with  the  iron  echoes 
beating  round  them  as  they  clanged  along, 
like  an  everlasting  resonance  of  bolts  and 
chains  shot  home  and  barring  them  out  of 
happiness. 

But  when  there  is  a  disturbance  in  the  at 
mosphere  for  one  or  two  people,  there  is  apt 
to  be  at  the  same  time  a  disturbance  for 
several.  As  Miss  Barbara  Camperdoun  at 
her  door  was  surveying  the  clouds,  just  be 
fore  the  thunder-storm  burst  over  the  valley, 
she  hardly  saw  the  carriage  taking  Mrs. 
Donner  to  the  station,  for  at  the  same  mo- 


134  AN  INHERITANCE 

ment  she  saw  a  figure  strangely  familiar 
coming  along  the  dusty  road — yellow  um 
brella  and  camp-stool  and  other  fine  artistic 
belongings  under  his  arm,  and  a  generally 
weary  air  about  him,  as  he  also  looked  at 
the  clouds,  not  to  be  mistaken. 

"My  gracious!  "  she  exclaimed,  as  she 
went  in  quickly  and  shut  the  door.  "Was 
there  ever  anything  more  unfortunate? 
There  isn't  a  moment  to  lose.  I  shall  speak 
to  Dr.  Donner  at  once,  and  tell  him  what  I 
propose  to  do  for  Luisa,  if  she  marries  to 
please  me.  And  I  really  think  she  might 
go  further  and  fare  worse.  He  can't  do  less 
for  John.  He  will  do  more.  Yes,  I  think 
the  house  will  be  on  the  Avenue.  But  the 
nail  must  be  clinched  now,  for  Luisa's  as 
changeable  as  the  day.  What  in  the  name 
of  goodness  sent  Penny  Gower  to  Wood- 
sedge  now  ? ' ' 


THE  thunder-storm  that  had  swept  through 
the  valley  while  the  party  of  young  people 
rested  on  the  ledges  of  Weathergauge  had  left 
the  air  next  morning  more  light  and  nimble 
than  that  round  Macbeth' 's  castle,  and  Miss 
Barbara  Camperdoun  had  recovered  from 
the  fright  into  which  thunder  always  cast 
her,  sufficiently  to  remember  the  look  on 
Luisa's  face  as  John  had  parted  from  her  at 
the  gate,  and  she  had  darted  past  her  aunt 
and  old  Martha  and  up  to  her  own  room, 
something  disordered,  something  flushed — 
Miss  Barbara  could  not  tell  if  that  look  were 
one  of  purpose,  of  joy,  or  of  agony. 

"  It  is  all  settled  !  "  said  Miss  Barbara  to 
herself.  "  And,  of  course,  it  has  excited 
her.  She  is  such  a  little  free  and  inde 
pendent  spirit,  she  does  not  take  kindly  to 
the  idea  of  being  mastered,  and  it  is  plain 
that  love  has  mastered  her  at  last.  Well, 
135 


136  AN  INHERITANCE 

I'm  glad  things  have  declared  themselves 
before  Penny  Gower,  with  his  ridiculous  at 
tractions,  came  upon  the  scene  to  make  a 
diversion.  And  as  I  said  this  noon,  the 
very  first  thing  I'll  do  to-morrow  is  to  see 
Dr.  Donner  and  have  the  thing  made  irrev 
ocable.  With  what  the  doctor  is  able  to 
allow,  and  I  am  convinced  that  is  something 
extraordinarily  handsome,  and  with  what  I 
can  do,"  said  Miss  Barbara,  counting  off 
imaginary  sums  on  her  fingers,  "  few  young 
people  have  a  better  start  in  life  than  they 
will  have.  Yes,  it  is  decidedly  the  best 
chance  Luisa  has  had,  or  is  likely  to  have. 
I'm  sure  I  don't  know  who  there  is — and  I 
want  her  settled !  We  will  get  him  a  Back 
Bay  practice,  with  the  kind  of  people  that 
go  out  of  town  from  May  to  October,  so 
that  they  can  come  up  here  for  four  months 
in  the  year  at  least.  And  the  more  I  see  of 
this  ideal  village  and  this  ancestral  place  of 
ours,  the  more  fit  I  think  it  all  is  !  And, 
for  my  part,  I  shall  have  a  load  off  my  mind 
when  Luisa  is  married  and  tied  down  to  some 


AN  INHERITANCE  137 

duties,  for  I  never  know  what  in  the  world 
the  little  brimstone  is  going  to  do  next !  It 
certainly  is  a  misfortune  to  be  an  only  daugh 
ter  and  a  beauty,  and  have  a  spirit  and  a 
will,  and  lovers,  and  all  that.  Dear,  dear 
me,  it  is  nearly  midnight  now  !  I  wonder 
if  they  have  such  storms  here  frequently — 
thunder  does  always  string  me  up  so !  " 

So  it  was  early  in  the  morning  when  a 
note,  written  in  Miss  Barbara's  most  mannish 
hand,  but  sealed  with  her  most  ladylike  wax, 
and  asking  his  presence  for  a  brief  interview, 
was  put  into  Dr.  Donner's  hand. 

The  doctor  was  breakfasting  by  himself, 
and  feeling  exceedingly  lonesome.  He 
missed  the  face  opposite  him  for  so  many 
mornings  of  so  many  years — for  even  when 
his  wife  had  been  up  all  night  with  the  sick 
she  had  always  made  shift  to  pour  his  coffee  ; 
and  he  felt  as  if  there  were  something  gone 
wrong  in  the  relation  of  things  without  it  — 
the  face  that  might  be  old  and  plain,  but  in 
which  the  sweetness  of  the  spirit,  as  he  had 
told  her,  had  wrought  a  loveliness  that  to 


138  AN   INHERITANCE 

him  was  more  than  beauty,  and  that  of  late 
years  it  had  never  crossed  his  mind  to  doubt 
was  beautiful  to  all  the  world  besides.  He 
was  thinking  of  her  as  he  slowly  sipped  his 
coffee.  A  bitterness  of  sudden  remem 
brance  of  those  early  days,  and  what  now 
seemed  to  him  her  divine  patience  in  endur 
ing  them,  made  even  his  cup  taste  bitter. 
He  thanked  heaven,  as  he  bent  his  head  in 
the  silent  grace,  that  she  had  never  known 
his  baseness  in  marrying  her  as  he  did.  He 
felt  as  he  thought  of  it  afterward  while  fill 
ing  his  phials  that  he  could  not  have  borne 
her  righteous  contempt.  He  felt,  too,  that 
he  could  even  less  well  have  borne  the  sting 
of  anguish  it  would  have  been  to  her.  He 
thanked  heaven  for  another  thing — as  in  his 
practice  he  had  noticed  that  the  son,  al 
though  he  might  have  the  father's  physical 
resemblance,  was.  almost  invariably  the 
moral  and  mental  and  spiritual  child  of  his 
mother — that  John  was  his  mother's  son  ; 
and  as  he  thought  of  it,  John  seemed  to  him 
to  have  an  immense  advantage,  a  tremen- 


AN  INHERITANCE  139 

dous  spring-board  for  his  work  in  the  fact 
that  he  was  his  mother's  son.  It  was  al 
ready  a  consecration  for  the  Master's  work. 
"  And  there  is  need  of  him,"  thought  the 
doctor.  "  Here,  it  may  be,  too.  For 
where  there  was  one  Break  o'  Day  with  all 
its  miseries,  one  Dawlish's  when  I  was  a 
lad,  there  are  five  now — farther  off,  to  be 
sure,"  for  neither  of  those  places  existed 
now  in  Woodsedge,  "  but  still  within  reach, 
and  fermenting  evil,  needing  the  strength  of 
his  mighty  young  frame  and  the  purity  of 
his  principle."  And  then  it  flashed  over 
him,  not  for  the  first  time,  the  conviction  of 
the  boy's  feeling  if  he  knew  of  the  early  life 
of  his  father.  And  he  groaned  in  spirit. 
"  Well,  well,"  he  said.  "  We  are  forgiven 
a  sin  when  we  have  reached  a  point  where 
we  could  by  no  possibility  commit  it  again. 
And  if  I  have  the  Lord's  forgiveness,  I 
think  I  must  rely  on  the  boy's.  And  in  all 
probability  he  will  never  have  a  dream  of  it. 
For  who  would  have  the  temerity  to  speak 
of  it  to  him  ? — there  is  not  a  creature  in  the 


140  AN  INHERITANCE 

world  so  cruel,  so  ignoble.  Come,  come, 
this  is  a  poor  beginning  of  a  day's  work  ! 
And  the  young  fellow  on  his  horse  half-way 
up  Weathergauge  already — I  wish  he  hadn't 
to  have  this  pain  that  I  fear  may  be  coming 
— but  it  would  be  worse  pain  by  and  by. 
Somehow  the  best  we  have  comes  through 
pain.  His  mother  will  make  it  all  right, 
though."  As  he  went  out,  he  saw  lying 
on  the  table  in  the  hall  the  white  Liberty 
scarf  that  his  wife  had  worn  the  day  before ; 
he  took  it  up  and  kissed  it ;  it  had  lain  in 
one  of  her  old  sandal-wood  boxes,  and  car 
ried  the  delicate  scent,  sweet  and  evanes 
cent,  that  was  always  about  her  garments, 
and  he  put  it  in  his  breast-pocket  before 
reading  the  note  from  Miss  Barbara  that 
Sally  handed  him. 

It  was  but  a  short  distance  across  the 
green  to  the  Camperdoun  house  under  its 
great  oak-trees.  Not  waiting  for  his  gig, 
the  doctor  strolled  over,  his  hands  in  his 
pockets,  except  when  he  took  them  out  to 
put  them  on  the  curly  heads  of  two  children 


AN  INHERITANCE  141 

running  along  on  either  side  of  him  a  little 
way,  Brow,  the  grandson  of  old  Brow,  fol 
lowing  at  his  heels  in  the  hope  of  a  frolic 
with  Bursar,  and  he  paused  at  the  Camper- 
doun  gate  for  a  draught  of  the  fresh,  dewy 
fragrance  that  blew  down  from  the  mountain 
side  and  curled  about  the  valley,  and  seemed 
to  fill  it  with  strength  and  courage,  and  all 
the  deliciousness  of  life  besides.  The  doc 
tor  had  need  of  that  long  draught  of  brac 
ing  air  and  vigor  before  he  turned  and  went 
up  the  path  to  meet  Miss  Barbara  at  the 
door. 

She  took  him  into  the  west  parlor,  a  cool 
and  shadowy  place  in  the  morning,  with  its 
heavy  damask  curtains,  whose  moss-green 
hues  had  long  since  faded  to  a  silver-olive 
sheen,  and  among  whose  old  spider-legged 
mahogany  and  dark  imprisoning  portraits 
Launce  Camperdoun  had  been  wont  to 
spend  his  sunsets  and  long  evenings.  It 
was  all  the  same  as  it  had  been,  except  for 
the  great  jars  of  fresh  flowers  that  stood 
about  here  and  there.  But  it  gave  Dr. 


142  AN  INHERITANCE 

Donner  a  more  than  passing  mood  of  sad 
ness  to  recall  the  life  that  had  been  lived 
and  had  gone  out  here  in  its  mild  mad 
ness  ;  and  as  he  stood  looking  at  the  pict 
ure  of  Camperdoun  in  his  youth,  in  the 
niche  over  the  fireplace,  he  found  tears  in 
his  eyes. 

Luisa  had  not  yet  come  down ;  the  little 
maid  who  helped  Martha  had  been  told  to 
bring  her  toast  and  tea  to  her  room  some 
time  ago.  So  Miss  Barbara  felt  herself  at 
perfect  liberty.  Not  that  she  anticipated 
any  difficulty — of  course  she  was  doing  the 
Donners  an  honor  which  they  would  rec 
ognize  and  acknowledge ;  but  still  she  pre 
ferred  to  have  the  doctor  by  himself. 

"  Pray  be  seated,  doctor,"  she  said. 
And  she  could  not  have  told  you  why  she 
felt  a  slight  sensation  of  awe,  as  if  in  the 
presence  of  majesty,  when  this  man,  who 
used  to  break  her  uncle's  horses,  took  the 
great  arm-chair  near  her  own  and  laid  his 
arm  along  the  ebony  table  there. 

' '  I  hope  you  are  not  very  much  occupied 


AN  INHERITANCE  143 

this  morning, ' '  she  said,  blandly ;  ' '  for  I 
want  your  counsel  and  agreement  concern 
ing  our  young  people." 

"Our  young  people?"  inquired  Dr. 
Donner. 

"  Yes — Luisa  and  your  son.  They  are — 
as,  to  be  sure,  you  are  aware — very  much 
— interested,  I  may  say,  in  each  other," 
said  Miss  Barbara,  hesitating  a  little  at  the 
calm  unsuspiciousness  of  the  doctor.  "  I 
had  supposed  they  had  a  warm  mutual  in 
terest,"  she  said,  hurriedly,  "and  with  very 
good  reason.  And  I  had  thought  of  bring 
ing  the  affair  to  your  attention  before.  But 
last  night  when  they  came  down  from  the 
mountain — Weathergauge,  do  you  call  it? 
— I  was  quite  sure  from  Luisa's  face  that 
they  had  arrived  at  a  happy  understand- 
ing " 

"  I  hope  not,"  said  the  doctor,  gravely. 

"You  hope  not?  " 

"  I  mean  that  with  every  wish  for  their 
happiness — so  much  so,  indeed,  that  it  is 
absurd  to  speak  of  it,"  said  the  doctor, 


144  AN  INHERITANCE 

"yet  anything  such  as  you  imply  would  be 
very  unfortunate." 

"Very  unfortunate?  " 

"I  think  so." 

"Not  at  all,"  said  Miss  Barbara,  re 
mounting  the  heights  from  which  she  had 
been  startled.  "  Not  at  all,  when  it  is  with 
my  full  approval." 

"What,"  began  the  doctor,  in  his  deep 
est  tones,  "what " 

"Has  that  to  do  with  it?"  said  Miss 
Barbara,  so  affable  and  sprightly  that  she 
was  half  astonished  at  herself.  "Why, 
everything  !  ' ' 

"I  really  fail  to  see " 

"  I  hardly  expected  you  would.  And  of 
course  I  am  conscious  that,  looking  at  it 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  last  genera 
tion,"  said  Miss  Barbara,  with  much  sweet 
condescension,  "  something  might  be  said 
about  a  misalliance.  But  we  are  living  in 
this  generation.  And  you  have  become  so 
eminent  in  your  profession,  Dr.  Donner, 
and  have  accumulated  such  wealth " 


AN  INHERITANCE  145 

"  Who  knows  anything  about  my  wealth? ' ' 
said  the  doctor,  stoutly. 

"And  John  being  your  only  child," 
continued  Miss  Barbara,  not  allowing  her 
self  to  falter,  although  feeling  the  ground 
less  firm  beneath  her  feet,  "  that — why,  all 
that  puts  a  very  different  face  upon  the  af 
fair.  ' ' 

"Miss  Barbara,"  said  the  doctor,  more 
gently,  "  wiser  people  than  we  have  made 
mistakes ' ' 

"  Oh,  no,  indeed,  not  in  the  least !  "  she 
exclaimed  with  assurance.  "  There  is  no 
mistake  about  it !  I  have  not  lived  in  the 
world  of  men  and  women  for  nearly  sixty 
years  not  to  know  love,  and  first  love,  par 
parenthese,  when  I  see  it.  Trust  a  woman 
for  that !  Luisa  is  a  girl  of  strong  feelings, 
and  no  one  of  her  lovers  has  ever  touched 
them  before.  I  must  admit  that  there  is 
something  —  something  —  very  compelling 
about  this  young  man  —  his  face,  his  figure, 
his  manner  —  and  then,  brought  up  as  he 
has  been,  his  mother's  companion " 


146  AN  INHERITANCE 

The  doctor  bowed. 

"Ah!  I  thought   you  would  see  it  as  I 

"  By  no  means,"  said  the  doctor.  "  This 
is  all  a  mistake,  Miss  Barbara,  as  I  said  be 
fore " 

"  And  as  I  said  before,  there  is  no  mis 
take  about  it  !  "  exclaimed  Miss  Barbara. 
"My  niece,  who  is  a  belle  and  a  beauty, 
and  your  son,  who  has  a  future  before  him, 
have  chosen  each  other,  for  better,  for 
worse." 

"It  would  be  decidedly  for  worse  if  they 
had  done  so,"  said  the  doctor,  moving  his 
fingers  impatiently  on  the  table. 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  mean  !  "  cried 
Miss  Barbara.  "  What  insufferable  breed 
ing  the  man  has  !  "  she  thought.  "  Drum 
ming  his  fingers !  And  really  it  is  quite  too 
much  mock  humility.  Of  course,  it's  a 
great  thing  for  his  son  —  but  he  needn't 
pretend  to  misunderstand  me  so  altogether 
abjectly!  " 

She  used   her  smelling-salts   a  moment. 


AN  INHERITANCE  147 

"I  am  told,"  she  said  then,  "that  your 
son  is  to  follow  your  profession.  With  our 
family  connection  and  friends,  it  will  be 
easy  to  build  up  for  him  a  good  Back  Bay 
practice  very  rapidly.  With  his  talents  he 
will  soon  make  it  a  fine  one.  The  Back 
Bay  in  Boston  affords  opportunities " 

"  My  son  will  practise  his  profession  in 
and  about  Woodsedge,"  said  Dr.  Donner. 

"  Oh,  I  know  you  would  not  like  to  part 
with  him — a  son  like  that  !  But  you  would 
not  have  to  do  it.  For  at  least  four  months 
of  every  year  he  would  return,  if  he  chose, 
and  you  and  his  mother  would  have  him 
here.  I  should  surrender  to  Luisa  all  my 
right  and  title  to  this  house  for  their  sum 
mer  home,  and  to  the  whole  of  my  cousin's 
property,  indeed,  as  well  as  to  some  other — 
a  few  thousands,  but  enough  to  keep  the 
wolf  from  the  door,"  said  Miss  Barbara, 
with  a  genial  laugh.  "  There  will  be  some 
thing  handsome,  too,  for  Luisa  on  her  fa 
ther's  death,  but  festina  lente,  we  will  not 
count  on  such  contingencies,"  she  said, 


148  AN  INHERITANCE 

gayly.  "  You,  of  course,  are  able  to  do 
much  more  on  your  side  of  the  bargain — 
such  are  the  revanches  of  fate — but,  of 
course,  Luisa's  family  and  social  relations 
count  for  a  good  deal."  Miss  Barbara  had 
never  been  troubled  by  too  much  delicacy 
in  her  life.  "  Excuse  me,"  she  said,  how 
ever.  "It  is  not  a  time  for  sensitiveness  in 
the  weighing  of  advantages,  and  we  are  all 
going  to  be  one  family  so  soon  it  hardly 
signifies.  And  so,"  said  Miss  Barbara,  "I 
sent  for  you  this  morning,  Dr.  Donner,  to 
ask  what  settlement  you  would  be  willing 
to  make  on  the  young  couple.  I  suppose 
Commonwealth  Avenue  would  be  the  best, 
but  a  house  on  the  water  side  of  Beacon 
Street,  between  Berkeley  and  Exeter,  has 
much  in  its  favor.  And  there  should  be  a 
certain  yearly  allowance  to  keep  it  up,  of 
course,  as  Luisa's  dress  and  her  brougham 
and  coachman  would  probably  absorb  the 
greater  part  of  her  own  income,  and  she 

would  be  providing  the  house  up  here " 

"  Miss  Barbara  !  "  exclaimed  the  doctor, 


AN  INHERITANCE  149 

as  soon  as  he  had  the  chance,  raising  his 
voice  the  least  in  the  world,  "  you  are  going 
altogether  too  fast.  Allow  me  the  opportu 
nity  of  saying  that  I  should  give  nothing  to 
my  son  in  such  an  event.  Nothing  at  all. 
Not  even  my  consent. ' ' 

Miss  Barbara  looked  at  him  with  a  puzzled, 
almost  a  bewildered,  air.  "  You  would  give 
nothing — in  such  an  event — not  even  con 
sent,"  she  repeated.  "  I — I  don't  think  I 
understand  you." 

"  It  is  very  simple,"  he  said.  "  I  tried 
to  spare  you,  Miss  Camperdoun,  when  I 
divined  the  drift  of  your  thought " 

«  YOU — spare — me  !  "  cried  my  Lady  Dis 
dain.  "  What  in  the  world  do  you  mean?" 

"That  I  am  unwilling  to  countenance 
any  such  agreement  as  that  you  mention," 
he  said,  looking  at  her  steadily.  "And 
for  reasons  of  which  you  must  be  perfectly 
well  aware." 

The  sun  fell  on  Miss  Barbara's  face,  and 
he  rose  to  adjust  the  curtain,  giving  a  nod 
and  smile  as  he  did  so  to  the  pretty  creature 


150  AN  INHERITANCE 

standing  by  the  althea-bush  in  the  yard  with 
a  young  man  beside  her  there — Luisa,  who 
had  come  down  and  was  amusing  herself 
with  Penny  Gower. 

'•'Do  I  comprehend  you?"  said  Miss 
Barbara.  "Is  it  possible?  Are  you  de 
clining  for  your  son  an  alliance  with  my 
brother's  daughter?" 

"  She  is  a  charming  child,  a  lovely  girl," 
said  the  doctor.  "  I  could  take  her  delight 
edly  for  my  daughter,  but  not  for  my  son's 
wife." 

Miss  Barbara  waited  a  moment,  looking 
at  the  table,  and  beginning  to  draw  figures 
there  with  the  blunt  point  of  a  paper-knife. 
It  was  very  annoying.  But  then  for  Luisa' s 
sake — some  diplomacy.  "  For  what  rea 
sons?"  she  said,  leaning  forward,  a  little 
breathlessly. 

The  doctor  looked  up ;  his  eye  swept,  one 
after  another,  the  old  portraits.  He  moved 
his  hand  with  a  slight,  quick  motion  toward 
them.  "  The  best  of  reasons,"  he  said. 
* '  There  they  are.  I  cannot — you  must  for- 


AN  INHERITANCE  151 

give  me — I  cannot  give  my  son  any  share  in 
the  Camperdoun  inheritance." 

"  Speak  more  plainly  !  "  commanded  Miss 
Barbara,  with  flashing  eyes. 

"  There  is  no  need  of  that,"  he  replied. 
"  You  know  very  well  the  traditions  con 
cerning  every  pictured  person  in  this  room, 
from  your  cousin  Launce  up.  Is  there  one 
of  them  who  did  not  suffer  from  the  family 
taint?  " 

She  waited  a  moment. 

"  I  cannot  believe,"  she  said  then,  throw 
ing  down  the  ivory  plaything,  "  that  a  man 
of  your  scientific  acquirements  can  attach 
any  importance  to  those  old  notions  of  he 
redity." 

"I  attach  importance,"  he  said,  angrily 
at  last  in  his  turn,  "  to  the  Camperdoun  in 
sanity,  which  has  gone  from  mother  to  son, 
and  from  father  to  daughter,  for  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years,  and  I  will  not  have  my  son 
made  its  victim." 

"But  they  love  each  other,"  said  Miss 
Barbara. 


152  AN  INHERITANCE 

"  They  think  they  do,  possibly.  Two 
months  ago  my  son  was  of  a  different  opin 
ion,"  said  the  doctor,  a  light  shooting  across 
the  steel-blue  eyes.  "  Your  pretty  Luisa 
came,  a  charming  novelty — very  like  he 
swerved  aside.  I  regret  that  he  could  be 
swayed — but  it  is  pardonable.  When  she  is 
gone,  the  fascination  will  be  gone,  too,  and 
he  will  marry  and  be  happy  with  the  lovely 
girl  who  is  fitted  for  him,  has  grown  up  with 
him,  has  my  heart  and  his  mother's,  as  well 
as  his  own — yes,  under  this  infatuation,  his 
own." 

Miss  Barbara  was  wondering  at  herself 
and  her  forbearance.  Still,  it  might  be 
worth  while 

' '  But  you  really  make  too  much  of  the 
matter,"  she  said.  "We  do  not  regard  it 
so  seriously  in  society.  A  bar  to  marriage  ! 
At  home  one  would  be  thought  out  of  his 
head  who  entertained  such  an  idea  !  " 

"  You  entertained  it  once  yourself,  Miss 
Barbara. ' ' 

''There  were  two  of  us,"  said  Miss  Bar- 


AN  INHERITANCE  153 

bara,  with  a  slight  start.  "And  really  I 
don't  know  that  it  advances  matters  to  use 
personalities." 

"I  beg  your  pardon;  you  have  sought 
this  interview  and  opened  this  conversation 
on  nothing  but  personalities.  You  have 
compelled  me  to  state  plain  facts  and  to  use 
plain  language." 

And  the  doctor  leaned  back  in  his  chair 
as  if  tired  of  the  subject. 

"Well,  do  you  know,"  began  Miss  Bar 
bara  again,  after  another  confidential  mo 
ment  with  the  paper-knife,  "it  seems  to  me 
you  are  fighting  shadows.  I  think  the 
trouble,  such  as  it  is,  has  died  out." 

"  A  thing  never  dies  out  by  multiplying." 

"  But  healthier  blood — I  will  not  say 
better  blood — there  is  no  better  blood  than 
the  Camperdouns'  !  " 

She  paused ;    but  the  doctor  said  nothing. 

"  There  has  been  only  my  cousin  Launce 
of  all  this  generation.  For,  of  course,  my 
brother's  epileptic  seizures " 

"  Do  not  count,  you  would  say.     Excuse 


154  AN  INHERITANCE 

me,  they  count  for  what  they  are  worth.  All 
insanity  is  not  of  the  madhouse.  Half  the 
crimes  of  the  world,  and  most  of  the  crimes 
of  what  you  call  society,  are  but  forms  of 
insanity.  Once  the  infection  does  its  deadly 
work,  those  of  the  descendants  who  do  not 
share  its  poison  as  madmen  are  the  drunk 
ards,  the  kleptomaniacs,  the  epileptics,  the 
slaves  of  the  senses,  the  women  who  abandon 

their  children " 

11  How  you  talk  !  That  comes  of  living 
in  the  country  with  no  companions  but  your 
own  notions.  I  don't  know  anyone  who 
would  agree  with  you.  Why,  I  won't  say  it 
is  a  patent  of  nobility,  because  I'm  not 
claiming  any  merit  on  account  of  it,  al 
though  it  does  imply  a  highly  wrought  and 
delicately  sensitive  organization,  does  it  not? 
But  upon  my  word,  you  won't  find  twenty 
families  in  our  State,  who  think  well  of  them 
selves — who  have  blue  blood,  you  know — 
who  haven't  some  member,  near  or  far,  in 
a  retreat." 

"  My  son's  children,"  said  Dr.   Donner, 


AN  INHERITANCE  155 

bending  forward  and  gazing  at  her  gravely, 
"  will  not  be  added  to  the  number." 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say,"  cried  Miss  Bar 
bara,  all  restraint  giving  way,  "that  you 
persist  in  such  folly,  that  you  are  going  to 
obstruct  instead  of  assist  this  marriage  ?  Do 
you  know  who  you  are,  John  Donner  ?  Do 
you  forget  the  time  when  you  were  my 
uncle's  hired  man " 

"  I  was  hired  to  break  your  uncle's  horses. 
I  broke  them  well.  I  have  never  been  afraid 
of  wild  rage  in  any  form.  I  shall  not  sacri 
fice  my  son  to  it  now,"  said  the  doctor, 
rising. 

"Well,"  said  Miss  Barbara,  "  perhaps  I 
ought  not  to  have  spoken  exactly  that  way. ' ' 

"Certainly  you  ought  not!"  said  the 
doctor,  turning  on  her.  "Your  uncle  was 
my  benefactor.  Your  cousin  was  my  friend. 
I,  also,  I  was  his  friend.  You  should  have 
remembered  the  long  years  in  which  I 
shielded  him  from  himself  and  the  world 
while  he  suffered  under  the  black  spell  of  his 
inheritance " 


156  AN  INHERITANCE 

She  was  not  listening  to  him.  Some 
thing  had  flashed  across  her  recollection  and 
was  gone.  What  was  this  he  said?  He 
had  been  her  cousin's  friend.  Of  course  he 
had  !  Why,  there  were  those  letters — there 
was  that  letter ! 

"  Wait  a  moment !  "  she  cried.  "  Wait 
a  moment !  "  and  she  added  to  herself,  "  I 
have  not  done  with  you  yet,  Dr.  Donner !  " 

She  swept  across  the  room  to  the  old 
escritoire.  The  key  stuck  in  the  lock  a 
second ;  she  had  time  to  reconsider,  if  she 
would.  Reconsider  !  She  had  opened  the 
matter  out  of  pure  goodness,  she  said  to  her 
self,  as  her  thought  flashed  along  the  points. 
She  remembered  admiring  John  Donner, 
more  than  thirty  years  ago,  as  a  splendid 
specimen  of  a  man.  She  had  thought  now 
that  an  infusion  of  this  strong  blood  into  the 
tired  Camperdoun  race  might  be  a  good 
thing.  She  had  been  willing  to  overlook 
the  social  inequality.  She  had  been  very 
much  afraid  that  Luisa  would  marry  that 
Penny  Gower,  with  nothing  but  his  brush 


AN  INHERITANCE  i$7 

and  palette  to  his  name.  She  had  always 
been  afraid  Luisa  would  do  something  ec 
centric,  and  she  had  thought  that  the 
sooner  she  should  be  tied  fast  in  happy 
fetters,  with  husband  and  children,  the  bet 
ter.  She  had,  to  be  sure,  been  rather  star 
tled  when  she  saw  Luisa  showing  favor  to 
young  John  Donner,  and  then  she  had 
thought,  why  not?  "There  is  health, 
strength,  virtue,  wealth,  all  that  is  requisite 
— the  very  thing,"  she  said.  And  she  was 
fond  of  Luisa ;  the  girl  had  always  been  her 
pet  and  darling;  and  now  that  her  affec 
tions  were  engaged —  Still,  if  the  man  here 
were  going  to  oppose  it,  there  was  not  much 
use  in  talking  !  Very  likely  that  wife  of  his 
had  her  mind  set  on  something  else — Mary, 
the  minister's  daughter,  of  course.  She 
would  like  to  put  a  spoke  in  that  wheel ! 
And  the  man  presuming  to  stand  in  her  way 
— she  a  Camperdoun — he  who  had  sprung 
from  the  clods  of  the  valley !  Miss  Bar 
bara's  blood  was  up.  There  was  nothing  she 
had  liked  more  than  a  fight  all  her  life.  She 


158  AN  INHERITANCE 

was  not  going  under  in  this  one,  if  she  could 
help  it,  fair  means  or  foul.  Contest  the 
point  with  her  !  Decline  an  alliance  with  her 
niece  !  He  would,  would  he?  "  I  will  see 
about  that !  "  she  said.  It  was  not  for  Luisa 
now  that  she  strove.  It  was  not  for  love  or 
happiness  or  anything  of  the  sort.  It  was 
simply  to  carry  her  point,  to  overcome  John 
Donner  !  And  her  heart  burned  within  her 
with  revulsion  from  the  certainty  that  he 
would  accept  her  condescension,  with  anger 
that  he  should  have  dared  oppose  her, 
with  determination  to  have  her  own  way, 
now  while  she  turned  the  key,  took  a  bundle 
of  papers  from  a  pigeon-hole,  fluttered  her 
fingers  to  and  fro  among  them  and  drew  one 
out,  and  went  back  to  the  table  where  the 
doctor  had  again  seated  himself,  and  spread 
the  yellow  old  sheet  out  before  him. 

"  Do  you  remember  that  ?  "  she  asked. 

It  was  the  letter  in  which  he  had  an 
nounced  his  marriage  to  Launce  Camper- 
doun.  Dr.  Donner  arranged  his  glasses  to 
look  at  it. 


AN  INHERITANCE  159 

"  If  you  do  not  withdraw  all  opposition 
and  give  your  full  consent  and  assistance  to 
this  marriage  as  I  propose  it,"  she  said,  "  I 
will  show  this  letter  to  your  wife  !  ' ' 

As  Dr.  Donner  began  to  read,  it  was 
with  an  entirely  impersonal  sense.  Even 
his  handwriting  had  changed  so  much  in  the 
course  of  years  that  he  did  not  at  first  recog 
nize  this  script  as  his  own.  And  that  life 
was  so  far  away,  he  had  so  utterly  and  en 
tirely  outlived  it,  that  it  was  a  moment  or 
two  before  he  quite  comprehended  where  he 
was. 

"  The  cad  !  "  he  said,  presently. 

And  then  Miss  Barbara's  long,  thin,  yel 
low  hand  on  the  table,  with  its  great  emer 
ald  sparkling  upon  the  lean,  pointed  finger 
that  detained  the  sheet,  caught  his  eye,  and 
he  saw  that  she  was  holding  the  sheet  down 
to  prevent  his  taking  it ;  and  the  whole 
truth  smote  him  that  this  shameful  letter  he 
had  written  himself,  of  his  wife,  and  it  was 
her  purpose  to  let  Nancy  see  it.  He  sprang 
to  his  feet  with  a  cry.  Nancy  see  this  letter  ? 


160  AN  INHERITANCE 

His  face  grew  red  as  he  thought  of  it — grew 
purple.  He  bent  over  the  table,  the  veins 
all  but  bursting  on  his  forehead,  and  the 
sweat  beaded  it  in  great  drops.  Not  for  all 
the  wealth  of  all  the  Indies  would  he  have 
Nancy  see  that  letter  !  Not  for  the  greatest 
joy  of  earth  or  the  highest  hope  of  heaven  ! 
Have  Nancy  know  he  was  capable  of  such  a 
villainy  ?  There  was  a  grossness  of  rascality 
in  it  that  appalled  him  even  now.  To  have 
Nancy  know  that  he  had  been  that  das 
tardly  wretch,  to  have  her  despise  him — as 
she  must — to  have  her  loathe  him?  Oh, 
no  !  no  !  He  put  up  his  hands  before  his 
face,  from  which  the  color  fled,  and  sat 
down  and  leaned  back  in  the  chair,  white  as 
the  dead. 

His  pure-hearted,  innocent  Nancy  !  The 
beautiful  soul,  who  believed  in  him  so  and 
— in  all  the  pain  he  might  have  given  her, 
he  had  given  her,  during  those  first  years — 
had  never  known  that  he  had  not  loved  her, 
had  never  dreamed  she  had  been  subjected 
to  such  insult,  such  outrage !  To  have  his 


AN  INHERITANCE  161 

dear  wife  so  hurt,  so  irretrievably,  so  irrepa 
rably  hurt — he  cringed  at  the  thought  of  the 
blow,  the  pain — and  his  the  hand  to  deal  it ! 
His  eyes  as  he  looked  up  were  like  those  of 
some  great  wounded  wild  creature,  blood 
shot,  and  full  of  anguish  and  bewildered  im 
ploring. 

"Have  you  no  mercy?"  he  stammered, 
with  his  stiff,  white  lips. 

"  Not  the  least  particle,"  said  Miss  Bar 
bara.  "It  isn't  a  case  for  mercy;  it  is  a 
mere  matter  of  business.  You  have  to  take 
care  of  your  family.  I  am  taking  care  of 


Through  the  open  window  came  a  pleas 
ant  hum  of  voices.  It  was  Luisa,  who  knew 
she  looked  particularly  well  standing  among 
the  scarlet  blossoms  of  the  trumpet-flower 
trellis  for  Penny  Gower  to  admire.  They 
might  have  strolled  away  presently ;  it  was 
as  still  outside  as  it  was  in  the  west  parlor. 
The  sound  of  the  voices  only  made  Miss 
Barbara  set  her  teeth  more  firmly. 

It  was  very  warm.     The  doctor  wiped  his 


1 62  AN  INHERITANCE 

forehead  and  tried  to  think  again.  The 
odor  of  the  new  lilies  came  curling  into  the 
room ;  the  balsam-branch  in  the  great  fire 
place  oppressed  him  with  its  fragrance ;  he 
heard  a  cat-bird  drop  its  shower  of  melody 
from  the  bough  outside,  and  it  struck  him 
like  a  sound  of  pain ;  the  murmur  of  the 
bees  in  the  warm  sunshine  seemed  to  be 
buzzing  in  his  brain.  No,  no,  thrice  no  ! 
He  himself  could  endure  the  shattering  of 
all  his  earthly  happiness ;  he  could  endure 
anything,  everything,  but  his  wife  should 
never  have  that  cruel  hurt,  she  should  never 
know  the  dishonor  she  had  suffered,  she 
should  never  know  there  was  a  time  he  had 
not  loved  her. 

Miss  Barbara's  long  hand  still  lay  across 
the  paper,  and  her  cruel,  mocking  eyes  sur 
veyed  him. 

"Well?"  she  demanded. 

"You  have  no  business  with  it,"  he  said. 
"It  is  mine." 

"No,  it  was  my  cousin's.  He  be 
queathed  me  all  he  had.  It  is  mine. 


AN  INHERITANCE  163 

Simply  as  his  executor  it  would  be  mine. 
You  can  have  it,  though,  on  the  conditions 
named.  What  are  you  going  to  do  about 
it?" 

His  boy,  then,  was  the  price  of  that  let 
ter.  He  could  save  himself  his  wife's  scorn, 
he  could  save  his  wife  the  misery  of  that 
knowledge — and  that  was  the  thing  !  He 
could  endure  the  scorn,  but  he  could  not  en 
dure  her  misery.  It  could  all  be  spared  by 
giving  his  boy  what  was  now  the  desire  of 
his  heart,  and  would  presently  be  fire  under 
his  feet  and  ashes  in  his  mouth.  He  could 
save  himself,  he  could  save  his  wife,  but 
then  the  boy's  life  must  be  ruined.  As  he 
sat  there,  that  yellow  sheet  of  paper  seemed 
to  rise  and  hang  in  the  air  between  him  and 
the  sunshine.  It  was  dark  all  around  him ; 
he  heard  the  rustling  of  the  boughs  sweeping 
against  one  another  in  the  soft  summer  wind 
as  if  it  were  the  murmur  of  another  planet. 
He  fumbled  for  his  handkerchief  again,  and 
the  Liberty  scarf  fell  out,  with  its  delicate 
perfume,  bringing  his  wife's  presence  almost 


1 64  AN  INHERITANCE 

about  him.  Someone  lifted  a  latch;  he 
could  not  have  told  if  the  sound  were 
leagues  away  or  striking  on  his  breast.  But 
he  stood  up,  supporting  himself  with  both 
hands  on  the  table,  drenched  to  the  skin  and 
trembling.  He  knew  what  to  do  now. 

He  would  not  spare  himself  for  the 
boy. 

Neither  would  the  mother  spare  herself 
for  the  boy. 

It  was  all  clear. 

"Do  as  you  please  with  the  letter,"  he 
said.  "  But  I  will  never  give  my  consent 
to  the  ruin  of  my  son  by  means  of  the  Cam- 
perdoun  inheritance." 

At  that  moment  the  door  that  Miss  Bar 
bara  had  so  carefully  closed  flashed  open, 
and  Luisa  stood  in  the  sunshine  that  burst 
through  from  the  hall,  as  if  she  were  radiant 
with  it. 

"  I  was  under  the  window  with  Penny," 
she  said,  in  a  high,  shrill  tone.  "  Perhaps 
I  have  not  heard  all  you  have  been  saying, 
but  I  have  heard  enough  !  And  that  letter  ! 


AN  INHERITANCE  165 

I  don't  know  what  is  in  it,  but  I  know 
where  it  belongs!"  and  she  snatched  it 
from  under  her  aunt's  hands,  tossed  it  on 
the  balsam-boughs  in  the  fireplace,  and  be 
fore  Miss  Barbara  could  hinder,  scratched 
a  match  and  sent  bough  and  letter  blazing 
and  roaring  up  the  big  chimney. 

Then  she  turned  and  faced  the  two  again. 
1  'You  are  quite  right,"  she  said  to  the 
doctor,  her  hands  hanging  before  her,  tightly 
clasped,  and  her  face  pallid.  "I  will  not 
see  your  son  again.  I  understand  about  the 
Camperdoun  inheritance  now.  It  is  some 
thing  not  to  be  shared.  I  may  never  come 
to  my  own,"  she  said,  with  a  light  and  bit 
ter  laugh  then,  "but  I  will  make  no  one 
else  wretched  with  a  peradventure.  I  will 
go  down  with  Penny  there  and  we  will  rub 

along " 

"  Penny !  "  shrieked  Miss  Barbara.   "  Are 
you  mad   already,   Luisa!      Marry   Penny 

when " 

' '  Goodness    gracious,    Aunt   Barbara ! ' ' 
said    Luisa,    in    a    perfectly   matter-of-fact 


1 66  AN  INHERITANCE 

key.  ' '  You  seem  to  think  of  nothing  but 
marrying  !  I  shall  not  marry  anyone,  now 
or  ever.  I  shall  not  join  the  St.  Margaret 
sisterhood,  either,"  she  added.  "Helen 
Reynolds,  Fanny  Fairfield,  and  I  are  a  sis 
terhood  by  ourselves.  I  shall  just  loiter 
along  as  I  have  been  loitering,  with  Penny 
for  a  pis  aller.  He  can't  afford  to  marry. 
I  can't  afford  to  marry — with  a  difference. 
He  will  go  on  with  his  pictures  that  never 
sell.  I  shall  go  on  with  my  flirtations  that 
always  sell. ' ' 

The  doctor  looked  up  at  her  suddenly,  as 
if  roused  from  a  stupor. 

"No,  no,"  she  said,  with  a  swift,  depre 
catory  gesture.  "  I  am  all  right.  There  is 
nothing  the  matter  now.  I  am  no  more 
feather-brained  than  I  always  was.  It  hasn't 
broken  out  yet !  " 

"  My  dear  child,"  said  the  doctor,  trem 
ulously,  "  it  never  may.  In  all  probability 
it  never  will.  Only,  for  my  son's  sake,  I 
cannot  accept  the — the  possibility." 

"And  I   suppose   you  think  I  ought  to 


AN  INHERITANCE  167 

love  God,  who  has  given  me  such  a  horrible 
inheritance !  ' ' 

"All  the  more,  my  poor  little  girl,  you 
will  have  need  of  such  a  comfort  and  of  its 
shield,"  he  murmured,  in  a  voice  that 
sounded  a  long  way  off. 

"  I  never  knew  about  it,"  she  said,  wist 
fully,  twisting  a  lock  of  her  loosened  hair, 
"  till  I  heard  Martha  talking  to  him.  And 
then  I  didn't  wholly  understand.  And  I 
didn't  want  to  understand  !  I  felt — I  was 
sure — I  knew  it  must  all  come  to  nothing. 
But  I  wanted  to  know  what  it  was  just  to 
be — to  be — oh,  oh,  so  happy  for  one  mo 
ment  !  "  and  she  hid  her  face  in  her  arms 
with  a  great  sob. 

"Luisa,"  said  the  doctor,  trying  to  move 
toward  her.  And  then  his  knees  bent  un 
der  him,  he  tottered  and  swayed,  and 
slipped  heavily  to  the  floor. 

Sitting  by  his  father's  side  that  night, 
holding  his  wrist,  watching  every  pulse, 
every  breath,  John  Donner  read  the  note 


1 68  AN  INHERITANCE 

that  Sally  put  into  his  hands,  almost  as  un- 
comprehendingly  as  if  it  had  been  written  to 
someone  else,  while  the  last  echoes  of  the 
night  -  train  went  throbbing  between  the 
hills. 

"It  was  all  a  mistake,"  the  note  ran. 
"Think  of  me  as  having  been  a  little  mad 
up  there  on  Weathergauge,  and  forget  me. ' ' 

It  dropped  from  his  fingers  as  if  it  were  a 
dead  leaf,  and  seemed  to  have  no  more  re 
lation  to  him  than  if  it  had  belonged  to  a 
previous  life.  All  his  being  just  then  was 
centred  in  the  beating  of  his  father's  heart, 
all  his  new  skill  was  put  to  proof  in  keeping 
him  alive,  the  physician  from  the  other  side 
of  the  hills  having  gone  to  lie  down,  and 
there  was  nothing  in  his  consciousness  but 
the  love  for  his  father,  the  fear  for  his 
mother. 

The  night  had  been  hot ;  the  windows 
were  all  wide  open ;  the  sunrise  was  in  the 
room  at  last,  luminous,  purple,  shot  through 
and  through  with  gold,  and  in  the  won 
drous  glow  the  great,  dark  peaks  swam  out 


AN  INHERITANCE  169 

like  giants  couched  about  the  bed  and  wait 
ing  on  the  sick  man's  breath.  The  rising 
wind  blew  in  a  riot  of  fragrance  and  fresh 
ness,  when  the  doctor  opened  his  eyes  and 
lifted  first  one  hand  and  then  the  other. 

"Nothing  but  a  vertigo,"  he  said. 
"  Your  mother  must  not  know,"  and  sank 
away  again. 

And  the  weeks  of  effort,  of  suspense  that 
followed,  with  the  endeavor  to  keep  his 
mother  unaware,  gave  John  so  small  time  to 
think  of  himself  that  when,  in  clearing  off 
some  papers,  he  came  across  that  little  note 
which  cost  Luisa  such  a  heart-break,  he  was 
aware  only  of  a  sense  of  relief. 

He  had  a  vague  idea  of  what  had  hap 
pened.  Had  there  been  something  wild 
and  wrong  in  his  father's  youth  that  his 
mother  was  not  to  know  ?  All  the  more  he 
loved  him,  and  he  held  him  in  a  passion  of 
tenderness.  He  would  not  let  Martha  or 
Sally  do  a  thing  now  that  he  could  do  him 
self,  nor  would  he  let  the  friends  and  coun 
try  people  who  held  their  breath  and  would 


1 70  AN  INHERITANCE 

gladly  have  risked  their  lives,  perhaps  have 
given  them,  for  him  who  had  been  Provi 
dence  to  them,  and  had  brought  them  and 
their  dear  ones  up  from  the  power  of  the 
grave. 

At  length  then  he  took  his  father  down, 
well  again,  if  still  weak,  to  his  mother  by 
the  sea,  having  written  to  her  constantly  as 
if  from  his  father  too  busy  at  first  to  write 
himself.  At  the  last  she  had  known  some 
thing  of  the  doctor's  illness,  but  also  that 
he  was  coming  to  her,  and  wished  her  to 
await  him;  and  his  wish  had  always  been 
obeyed  by  her. 

When  the  doctor  waked  in  the  late  even 
ing,  in  the  soft,  delicious  dark,  full  of  salt 
smells  and  of  the  wide  singing  of  the  sea, 
his  head  upon  his  wife's  breast,  her  arms 
about  him,  (t  We  are  old  people  now,"  he 
said,  "  but,  O  my  wife,  not  too  old  for 
love." 

"  With  our  whole  heart !  "  she  answered 
him. 


AN  INHERITANCE  171 

"  And  are  you  sure  I  always  loved  you?  " 

"  Why,  what  ails  you?"  she  said. 
' '  You  are  weak.  You  are  so  tired, ' '  and 
she  kissed  his  forehead  and  his  mouth. 

"And  you  forget  the  dark  and  evil 
days  ?  "  he  whispered. 

"There  never  were  any,"  she  said. 
"The  people  offered  thanks  in  all  the 
churches  of  all  the  mountain-side  for  you, 
the  day  before  yesterday,  but  I  thank  God 
for  you  every  hour  I  live  !  ' ' 

And  while  his  father  slipped  back  into 
purple  dreams  again,  John  was  sitting  high 
in  a  cleft  above  the  sea  with  Mary,  forefeel- 
ing  the  coming  of  the  moon  across  the 
water,  through  the  silvered  dusk,  watching 
some  far-off,  lonely  breaker  leap  to  catch  the 
light,  hearing  the  deep,  melodious  thunders 
plunge  about  them  and  fall  away  in  stillness 
and  come  in  again  borne  on  the  dripping 
winds  from  the  midsea  hollows.  And 
when,  in  answer  to  his  sigh,  Mary  laid  her 
hand  gently  on  his,  he  felt  that  there  was 
health  where  she  was,  and  that,  at  some  time, 


172  AN  INHERITANCE 

life  was  going  to  be  good  again  with  this 
fair,  white  woman,  whose  beauty  he  could 
not  see  in  the  shadow.  And  his  sigh  was 
only  for  the  sweetness  of  it  all — the  night, 
the  sea,  the  returning  love — the  sigh  of  the 
finite  in  the  presence  of  the  Infinite. 


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